^sv ^^^^^^^^\■>^^>C^^^^^^\^^\\■\^■'^^"W>\^^*\^^*^^^^'•^V^^^'^^^^^^ \^NSSwS?NW!WNwNvS /raw i0<^iB^mK^S\' ARNO ^1.^'' ..... 0^ '''' ^''''^"^^''^ ^... :vv %// PRINCETON, N. J. %. % Shelf.. Division.. Section . . . «ip<. .(^. . .4^erS»*f ' Ntcmbei' 'S'^M^^^^^-^-^>^-^''^L.. \y'-- THE ANCHOR OF THE SOUL AND OTHER SERMONS. ^!©ctrks bu the same Sluthor. LAIVS FROM HEAVEN FOR LIFE ON EARTH. Complete ix otie Toliiine. Croiv7i Svo, cloth. Price ys. 6cl. THE PARABLES OF OWE LORD. Cro7vn Svo, cloth. Pricr js. 6d. THE ANCHOR OF THE SOUL <^nl) ©titer <§crinans. BY THE REV. WILLIAM '"ARNOT, AUTHOR OF "laws FROM HEAV^EN FOR LIFE ON EARTH," ETC. ^^^^^ •r LONDON: T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW; EDINBURGH ; AND NEW YORK. /C^?.vy or m, AP,7 3 This Volume consists of Sermons selected from Mr. Arnot'S MSS. His family wish it to be stated that only one or two of them had been revised by himself for publication. The others are issued on the responsi- bility of friends who believe that they will be welcomed throughout the Christian Church. December 1875. C2 }) l:l^H^ /<^'- AP,7 CONTENTS. I. THE ANCHOR OF THE SOU I, ... .- ... ... 9 II. HE STOOD AND CRIED, ... ... ... ... 23 III. HE SHALL GLORIFY ME, ... ... ... ... 38 IV. HE SHALL BE SATISFIED, ... ... ... . . 52 V. THE FIRST PROMISE, ... ... ... ... fi« VI. PRAYER WITH THANKSGIVING, ... ... ... 82 VII. LAZARUS IS DEAD, ... ... ... ... ... 95 VIIL THE SOURCE OF CHRISTIAN LOVF, ... ,., ... 112 IX. HE KNEW WHAT WAS IN MAN, ... ,., ... 125 X. GOD KNOWN AS A REFUGE, ... ... ... ... i3'S XL JESUS IS RISEN, ... ... ... ... ... i57 XII. I WILL SING OF MERCY AND JUDGMENT, ... ... 168 XriL NECESSITY IS LAID UPON ME, ... ... ... 182 XIV. THE TWO BAPTISMS, ... ... ... ... 197 XV. A pilgrim's PROGRESS, ... ... ... ... 212 XVL HIMSELF HE CANNOT SAVE, ... ... ... ... 229 XVIL THE CLEANSING BLOOD, ... ... ... ... 2|4 XVIIL THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD, ... ... 2^0 XIX. WHO KNOCKS? ... ... ... ... ... 2/4 vni CONTENTS. XX. THE TWO TABERNACLES, XXI. FRUITFUL IN EVERY GOOD WORK, XXIL WHERE ARE THE NINE? XXIIL IN THIS THY DAY, ... XXIV. THE THREE KINGS, ... 28a 29S 314 324 34c I. ^ke c^nchcr of th^ §0x11. *' Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil." — Hebrews vi. 19. IN the margin of the ocean that surrounds and laves our island home, an object of absorbing interest may often be observed, — a ship riding at anchor near a lee shore in an angry sea. She has drifted, ere she was aware, too near a rock-bound coast : the wind is blowing direct on shore : there is not room to tack : whether she should point her prow north or south, she will strike a projecting headland ere she can escape from the bay. One resource remains, — to anchor where she is till the wind change. There she lies. Stand on this height and look down upon her through the drifting spray. I scarcely know in nature a more interesting or more suggestive sight. The ship is dancing on the waves : she appears to be in their power and at their mercy. Wind and water combine to make her their sport. Destruction seems near ; for if the vessel's hull is dashed by these waves upon the rocks of lo THE ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. the coast, it will be broken into a thousand pieces. But you have stood and looked on the scene a while, and the ship still holds her own. Although at first sight she seemed the helpless plaything of the elements, they have not overcome — they have not gained upon her yet. She is no nearer destruction than when you first began to gaze in anticipation of her fate. The ship seems to have no power to resist the onset of wind and wave. She yields to every blast and every billow. This moment she is tossed aloft on the crest of a wave, and the next she sinks heavily into the hollow. Now her prow goes down beneath an advancing breaker, and she is lost to view in the spray ; but anon she emerges, like a sea-fowl shaking the water from her wings and rejoicing in the tumult. As she quivered and nodded giddily at each assault, you thought, when first you arrived in sight, that every moment would prove her last ; but now that you have watched the conflict long, it begins to assume in your mind another aspect, and promise another end. These motions of the ship now, instead of appearing the sickly movements of the dying, seem to indicate the calm, confident perseverance of conscious strength and expected victory. Let winds and waves da their worst, that ship will meet them fearless, will hold her head to the blast, and maintain her place in defiance of their power. What is the secret of that ship's safety.? No other ship is in sight to which she may cling : no pillar stands within reach to which she may be moored. The bond THE ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. ii of her security is a line that is unseen. The ship is at anchor. The Hne on which she hangs does not depend on the waters, or anything that floats there ; it goes through the waters, and fastens on a sure ground beyond 'them. Thus, though the ship cannot escape from the wild waters, she is safe on their surface. She cannot, indeed, take the wings of a dove and fly away so as to be at rest ; but the sea cannot cover her, and the wind cannot drive her on the beach. She must, indeed, bear a while the tempest's bufletings ; but she is not for a moment aban- doned to the tempest's will. The motto of that ship is the motto once held aloft in triumph by a tempted but heroic soul : " We are perplexed, but not in despair ; per- secuted, but not forsaken ; cast down, but not destroyed" (2 Cor. iv. 8, 9). An immortal creature on this changeful life is like a ship upon the ocean. On the strength of that obvious analogy the apostle intimates, by a bold yet perspicuous figure, that we have " an anchor of the soul." The soul, considered as a passenger on the treacherous sea of Time, needs an anchor; and an anchor "sure and steadfast" is provided for the needy soul. In many respects the world, and human life on it, are hke the sea. Itself restless, it cannot permit to rest any of the pilgrims that tread its heaving, shifting surface. At some times, and in some places, great tempests rise ; but even in its ordinary condition it is always and every- where uncertain, deceptive, dangerous. Currents of air 12 THE ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. and currents of ocean intermingle with and cross each other in endless and unknown complications, bringing even the most skilful mariner to his wit's end — making him afraid either to stand still or to advance. On this heaving sea we must all lie. Even our Father in heaven does not lift up his own, and Christ the Son does not ask him so to do : *' I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world ; but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil." The best that can be done for them, in this world, is to preserve them from sinking or striking on the shore. The soul is tossed by many temptations ; but the anchor of the soul is sure and steadfast within the veil. Without are fightings, within are fears, — all these are against us ; but one thing will over-balance and overcome them — " Our life is hid with Christ in God." Hope sometimes signifies the act of a human spirit laying hold of an unseen object, and sometimes the object unseen whereon the human spirit in its need lays hold. These two significations may be combined toge- ther : they are so combined here. " The Hope set before us," is Christ entered for us now within the veil ; and the hope that " we have," is the exercise of a believing soul when it trusts in the risen Redeemer. These two cannot be separated. The one is the grasp which a believing soul takes of Christ, and the other Is the Christ whom a believing soul is grasping. These two run so close toge- ther that you cannot perceive where the joining Is. " I am the vine, ye are the branches." Even so. Lord ; and THE ANCHOR OF THE SOUL, 13 what human eye can tell the very line which marks where the branch ends and the vine begins ? Christians are members of Christ, — of his flesh and of his bones. "■ As he is, so are we in this world." " Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me.-*" "Which Hope we have." If you ask me, Whether does he mean, by hope, the Christ on whom his soul is leaning, or his own act of leaning on Christ } I answer, Both. You cannot have one of these without having both. The branch has the vine ; but it has also its own living growth into the vine. And if it had not that living growth into the vine, it would not have the vine. So the soul has Christ, and also its own living faith in Christ, wanting which it would have no Christ. Mark well here what it is that renders a disciple safe and firm as he floats on the rushing tide of Time. It is not terror of the Lord in his conscience. Such terror may awaken a slumberer, and make him flee to that which will keep him ; but the terror itself cannot keep him. Fear repels ; it is hope that holds ; — blessed hope ! The anchor must not be cast on anything that floats on the water, however large and solid it may seem. The largest thing that floats is an iceberg. But although an iceberg does not shake like a ship, but seems to receive the waves and permit them to break on its sides as they break on the shore, it would be ruin to anchor the ship to it. The larger and the less would drift the same way, and perish together. Ah! this stately Church — this 14 THE ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. high-seeming and high-sounding ecclesiastical organiza- tion, woe to the human spirit that is tempted in the toss- ing to make fast to that great imposing mass ! It is not sure and steadfast. It is floating : it moves with the current of the world : it moves to an awful shore ! Not there, not there ! Your hope, when you stretch it out and up for eternal life, must enter " into that within the veil, whither the Forerunner is for us entered." Nor will it avail a drifting ship to fix its anchor on itself It would be very childish to try this method ; but I have seen full-grown people betake themselves with great energy to this foolish shift. When a boat on a stream broke adrift with a few unskilful people on board, I have seen them in their alarm grasp the gunwale and bend themselves and draw with all their might in the direction of the shore ! In spite of their drawing, the boat glided with them dow^n the stream. In the concerns of the soul such childishness is even more common. Faith in one's own faith or charity is a common exercise among men. Beware ! Hope must go out for a hold ; even as the ship's anchor must be flung away from the ship. The eye is made for looking with, not for looking at. Aw^ay from all in ourselves, and out through all that floats like ourselves on this shifting sea, we must throw the anchor of the soul through the shifting waters into Him who holds them in the hollow of his hand. Mark, further, that hope in Christ is specifically the anchor of the soul. Here, like draws to like : spirit to spirit. God is a Spirit, and they that worship him wor- THE ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 15 ship him in spirit. There is no anchor that will make our temporal possessions fast. Wealth, and friends, and even life, may drift away any day on the flood ; and no power on earth can arrest the movement. These bodily things may or may not abide with a Christian ; but his anchor does not hold them. It is only an anchor of the soul, not an anchor of the body. We must not expect from the Lord what he never promised. There are contrivances not a few in our day for fixing material property, so that it shall not drift away in the currents of time. The system of assurances both on life and property has reached an enormous magnitude. Amidst its great and manifold branches, the wicked have of late years, like wild beasts in a forest, found cover for various crimes. Things are now made fast which our forefathers thought essentially uncertain, like the cur- rents of the ocean. Treasures are insured while they cross the sea in ships, so that, though the vessel go to the bottom, the importer gets his own. The food and clothing of a wife and children, which formerly were left to float on the uncertain waters of the husband and father's life, are made fast by insurance to an anchor which holds them, although that life should glide away. Taking up the obvious analogy employed in this scrip- ture, one of the insurance societies has adopted the an- chor as its name. But the action of these anchors is limited to things seen and temporal. They cannot be constructed so as to catch and keep any spiritual thing. They may hold 1 6 THE ANCHOR OF THE SOUL.. fast a wife's fortune, when the life of the bread-winner falls in ; but they cannot maintain joy- in her heart, or kindle light in her eye. Far less can they insure against the shipwreck of the soul. With these things they do not intermeddle. All the world may be gained for a man, and kept for him too, and yet he is a loser, if he lose his own soul. Only one anchor can grasp and hold the better part of man — and that is the hope which enters into the heavens, and fastens there in Jesus. The anchor — in as far as it indicates the object which hope grasps — the anchor is " sure and steadfast." The expressions are exact and full. The words are tried words. They are given in order that we might have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to the hope set before us. There are two cases in which one's hope may be disap- pointed : the support you lean on may be tinzvilling or unable to sustain you. In the one case it is deception ; in the other, weakness. A Christian's hope is not ex- posed to either flaw: it is both "sure and steadfast;" that is, the Redeemer, who holds them, is zvilling and able. He will not falsely let you go, nor feebly faint beneath your weight. He is true and strong — for these are the words. He both luill and can keep that which we commit to him against that day. With the same meaning, but by means of another ana- ^^&y> Christ is represented elsewhere in Scripture as a foundation ; and it is intimated that the foundation is a (512) THE ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 17 tried one. It has been put to the strain, and has stood the test. In modern practice great importance attaches to the trying of an anchor. Many ships have been lost through accident or fraud in the manufacture. The instrument had a good appearance, but there was a flaw in its heart ; and when the strain came, it snapped, and all was lost. For the security of the subject, the Government have erected an apparatus for testing anchors ; and the royal seal is stamped on those that have been approved. When the merchantman purchases an anchor so certified, he has confidence that it will not fail him in his need. It is interesting, and even solemn work, to test anchors, and stamp them as approved. Beware ! set not the seal on one that is doubtful, for many precious lives will yet be intrusted to its keeping. He who is now the anchor of the soul within the veil, was " made perfect through suffering." The safety of which this text speaks, is safety such as an anchor affords. This is different from the safety of a ship on a stormless sea, and different from the safety of a ship that is moored fore and aft within the walls of a harbour. Both these positions are safe ; but they differ both from each other and from safety by an anchor. Man unfallen enjoyed the first kind of safety, and the ransomed in rest enjoy the second ; but the place of a believer in the body is neither like that of a ship on a calm sea, nor like that of a ship within the harbour, — it is like a ship exposed to raging winds above, and deceit- f512) 2 i8 THE ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. ful currents below. Such a soul may be abundantly safe ; but its safety is of the kind that a ship enjoys while it is. exposed to the storms, and before it reaches the haven — the safety that an exposed ship enjoys through an anchor that is sure and steadfast. Take now a series of practical lessons. 1. The ship that is kept by an anchor, altJwiigh safe, is not at ease. It does not, on the one hand, dread destruc- tion ; but neither, on the other hand, does it enjoy rest. " Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you." Those who have entered the har- bour do not need an anchor ; and those who are drifting with the stream do not cast one out. The hope which holds is neither for the world without nor the glorified within, but for Christ's people as they pass through life — rejoicing with trembling ; faint, yet pursuing. " In the world ye shall have tribulation ; but be of good cheer : I have overcome the world." 2. But further : the ship that is held by an anchor is not only tossed in the tempest like other ships, — it is tossed more than other ships. The ship that rides at anchor experiences rackings and heavings that ships which drift with the tide do not know. So, souls who have no hold of Christ seem to lie softer on the surface of a heaving world than souls that are anchored on his power and love. The drifting ship, before she strikes, is more smooth and more comfortable than the anchored one ; but when she strikes, the smoothness is all over. The pleasures of sin are sweet to those who taste them ; THE ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. rg but the sweetness is only for a season. ** The wicked shall be driven away in his iniquity ; but the righteous hath hope in his death." 3. When the anchor has been cast into a good ground, the heavier the strain that comes on it, the deeper and firmer grows its hold. As winds and currents increase in violence, the anchor bites more deeply into the solid, and so increases its preserving power. It is thus with a trusting soul : temptations, instead of driving him away from his Saviour, only fix his affections firmer on the Rock of Ages. " When I am weak, then am I strong ; " when I am most exposed, then am I safest, in the hollow of my Redeemer's hand. If you have hold, it is in a time of temptation that you will increase the intensity of your grasp. Accordingly you find, as a general rule, that those Christians who have passed through a great fight of afflictions are stronger in the faith than others who have always sailed on a smooth sea. 4. The ship that is anchored is sensitive to every change of wind or tide, and ever tttrns sharply round to meet and resist the stream, from what direction soever it may flow. A ship is safest with her head to the sea and the tempest. In great storms the safety of all often depends on the skill with which the sailors can keep her head to the rolling breakers. Life and death have sometimes hung, for a day and a night in the balance, whether the weary steersman could keep her head to the storm until the storm should cease. Even a single wave allowed to strike her on the broadside might send all to the bottom. 20 THE ANCHOR OF THE SOUL, But to keep the ship in the attitude of safety, there is no effort and no art equal to the anchor. As soon as the anchor feels the ground, the vessel that had been drifting broadside, is brought up, and turns to the waves a sharp prow that cleaves them in two and sends them harmless alongf the sides. Watch from a height any group of ships that may be lying in an open roadstead. At night when you retire they all point westward ; in the morning, they are all looking to the east. Each ship has infallibly felt the first veering of the wind or water, and instantly veered in the requisite direction, so that neither wind nor wave has ever been able to strike her on the broadside. Thereby hangs the safety of the ship. Ships not at anchor do not turn and face the foe. The ship that is left loose will be caught by a gust on her side, and easily thrown over. As with ships, so with souls : those that are anchored feeL sensitively the direction and strength of the tempta- tion, and instantly turn to meet and to overcome it ; whereas those that are not anchored are suddenly over- come, and their iniquities, like the wind, carry them away. " We are saved by hope ; " — saved not only from being outcast in the end, but from yielding to temptation now. It is a vain imagination that rises in ignorant minds against the gospel of Christ, that when a sinner gets a glad hope in Christ's mercy, he will not be careful to obey Christ's law. It is an old objection, and perhaps it THE ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. 21 is human and natural ; but it is not real — it is not true. As certainly as the anchored ship feels every gust and every current, and turns sharply round to face and fight it ; so certainly a soul that has hope in Christ has a quick and sure instinct to detect influences and com- panionships and customs that dishonour the Lord and ensnare his people. And as the hopeful soul surely detects the danger, it also, in virtue of its hold and hope, turns round to meet, to resist, and to make the devil flee. I suppose no youth, since Pharaoh reigned in Egypt, has been exposed to a greater strain of temptation than that which Joseph overcame in Potiphar's house. But it was hope that saved him, as the anchor saves the ship. If he had not been at peace with God, he would have been like a ship caught on the broadside by a hurricane. It was the anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast within the veil before the blast began, that enabled him to over- come it : " How can I do this great evil, and sin against God?'' 5. When the ship is anchored, and the sea is running high, there is great commotion at her bows. The waves in rapid succession come on and strike. When they strike they are broken, and leap, white and angry, high up on the vessel's sides. This tumult is by no means agreeable in itself; but the mariner on board would not like to want it, for it is the sign of safety. If, while wind and waves continue to rage, he should observe that this commotion had suddenly ceased, he would not rejoice. 22 THE ANCHOR OF THE SOUL. He would look eagerly over the bulwarks, and seeing the water blue on her bows, instead of the hissing, roaring spray, he would utter a scream of terror. The smooth- ness at her bows indicates to him that her anchor is dragging. The ship is drifting with wind and water to the shore. Such, too, is the experience of a soul. Brother, you hope in Christ. Do not be surprised that the currents of fashion rub sometimes rudely against you. It is explained by a text in the Bible : " The friendship of the world is enmity with God." If you are fixed, a great flood is rushing by, and it must needs cause a commotion round you. An impetuous tide of worldliness will dash dis- agreeably against you from time to time. Do not be too anxious to make all smooth. Peace may be bought too dear. When the mighty stream of vanity on which you float produces no ruffling at the point of contact, — when it is not disagreeable to you, and you not disagreeable to it, — suspect that your anchor is dragging, that it has lost its hold, and that you are drifting into danger. Cast in the anchor while the sea is calm : you will need it to lean on when the last strain comes on ! II. "§t §tool) anil Cricb." *'/;z f/ie last day, that great day of the feast, yesiis stood and cjied, saying. If any man thirst, Id him come unto me, and drink.'''' — John vii. 37. ^^^HIS was the feast of booths or tabernacles. It was instituted expressly to commemorate the journey from Egypt to Canaan (Lev. xxiii. 33-43). Once every year, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, the ransomed people in their own good land cut down branches from the trees, therewith con- structed tents on the flat roofs of their houses, or in the open squares of the city, and dwelt night and day for a week under the fragile covering. It was by such institu- tions as this that the history of the Exodus was printed into the nation's life for all generations. The pilgrimage of forty years between the Red Sea and the Jordan be- came the mould in which the habit of their thought was cast ; their psalms and their prophecies were shapen in it. The language of Canaan was dipped in the bitter ex- periences of Egypt, and the free enjoyed more keenly their liberty by being continually reminded of their 24 HE STOOD AND CRIED. bondage. On the same principle, a more numerous seed of Abraham in a brighter land of promise will call to mind the struggles of the pilgrimage, in order to enhance the sweetness of eternal rest. In the latter days of Jerusalem, as we learn from the history of the period, a ceremony was added to those of the ordained feast of booths, intended, evidently, to com- memorate the thirst in the wilderness, and the supply that was provided from the rock in Horeb. On the last day of the feast, towards evening, the priests formed a procession, and having drawn water from the Pool of Siloam, bore it to the Temple, and poured it on the ground, so that it should flow down to the lower streets of the city. This symbol pointed, probably, to Ezekiel's grand vision of waters issuing from the Temple, small at first, but rapidly increasing, until they became a river that could not be passed over — a river to swim in. Ezekiel's vision must have been an object of passion- ate interest to the seed of Abraham in Palestine in our Lord's day. The condition of the people was wretched. They groaned under a foreign yoke. In vain they looked for a deliverer ; the heavens over their head remained as brass, and the earth under their feet as iron. There were, in a sense, thirsty souls, but there was no cold water to refresh them. These unhappy Jews, chafing in the chains of the oppressor, would listen to the gushing waters of Ezekiel's prophecy, as often as the passage occurred in the daily reading of the synagogue, with an intense and indescribable longing. With more or less HE STOOD AND CRIED. 2$ of intelligent faith, they agonized for a time when forth from the Temple at Jerusalem a stream of blessing should flow to refresh the weary land. I think they would pore over the prophet's pictured page until they saw the river in their dreams, and were awaked by the tumult of imaginary joy, to discover that their souls were still empty. The longing of the people's hearts, it seems, found outlet in the introduction of a new symbol, superadded to the ordained feast, but apparently in harmony with its main design, and suited to the emergency of the time. Besides a material enacting of the dwelling in tents, they instituted a material representation of the stream that flowed from the rock, quenching the bodily thirst at the time, and promising better things in Christ. The procession of priests has gone to Siloam and returned to the Temple. They have poured the water from the golden vessel, and a rivulet is making its way along the unwonted channel, forth from the hallowed courts towards the city. The assembled crowds are ranged on either side, watching the progress of the mimic stream. The beams of the setting sun strike the water, where in a hollow it spreads into a pool, and golden glory flashes for a moment from the spot that had been dull dry earth before. The multitude gaze in ignorant superstition ; but some of the Lord's hidden ones are there, waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and spelling painfully out of these dead letters the name of their living Redeemer. 26 HE STOOD AND CRIED. Jesus was there teaching'. He had come up about the middle of the feast, and now its last day was nearly- done. He looked on the crowd as they gazed wist- fully on the symbolic water. His heart was yearning for them. He knew what was in man : he knew that the Jews made idols of these significant signs, as they made idols of the scriptures which were printed on their clothinsf. He saw them drinkino- that which cannot quench the thirst of a soul. He pitied them, and came to the rescue. You have seen a group of bare-footed, ragged, hungry children, standing on the pavement on a cold winter night, gazing through the glass of a baker's window — gazing on the bread, which they greatly needed, but could not reach. You pitied them ; perhaps you paused, and gave the needy little ones some of the bread for which they longed ; you remembered, as you resumed your journey, the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, " It is more blessed to give than to receive." Such to the Lord seemed those groups of Jews who crowded forward to see the water flowing that evening in the courts of the Temple at Jerusalem. He saw them straining after a consolation, which, although it was near them, they could not reach. The waters were indeed a symbol of spiritual life in the Lord ; but the Jews could not penetrate the glass which at once veiled and revealed the salvation of Christ. They were like the visitors who stood and looked into the empty grave of Jesus. He is not there ; he is risen. Why seek ye the living among HE STOOD AND CRIED. 27 the dead ? This is man's extremity and God's opportu- nity. He approaches them ; he speaks to them ; he turns their straining eyes away from the husks which once held the wheat, but which are empty now. He bids them turn away from that trickHng symboHc water to himself, the Saviour from sin. " In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." Consider the invitation, — • I. In its substance : " Any one, come unto me." II. In its specific form : " If any one thirst, let him drink." HI. In its peculiar earnestness : " In the last, great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." I. The invitation in its substance: "Any one, come unto me." 1. What the offer is : " Come unto me." 2. To whom the offer is made : " Any one." I. What the offer is : " Come unto me." — It is here that a minister meets his greatest difficulty, and discovers his own helplessness. God's greatest things are the sim- plest, and the simplest things it is most difficult to explain. As long as our course lies along the outskirts, and among the accessories of the faith, our expositions may be intelligible, interesting, and instructive ; but when we approach the heart of our theme, we are liable to be made dumb if we perceive its greatness, or to 28 HE STOOD AND CRIED. speak foolishly If we don't. Scarcely any form of words is more familiar in this Christian community than " Come, to Jesus," and cognate expressions gathered directly from the Bible or bursting out from believing hearts ; yet scarcely any form of words passes more frequently by, like a ship in the sea or a bird in the air, without leaving a track behind. The way to be saved is to come to the Saviour. He does not destroy our enemies, and permit us to remain at a distance from himself We cannot be saved by him unless we are saved in him. He desires to get the company of saved men ; and if men hope to be saved by his mercy, and yet keep out of his sight, they have missed the meaning of his work. If, with no relish for his presence, you keep company with your vanities, and cry to an Almighty Christ to open for you the gates of heaven, that in the last extremity you may escape from hell, you have no part in his salvation. The answ^er prepared for you is, " Depart from me ; I know you not." Those who do not want to have Christ's society on earth will not get it in heaven. His invitation, " Come unto me," implies that we part from all that displeases him, and w^alk with him in newness of life. The true disciples, when the Lord manifests himself, are ready at all times, and especially when darkness approaches, to constrain him to abide. While he walks with them, their hearts burn : when they miss him from their com- pany, their hearts are sad. His promise is a double one : Lo, I am for you at the judgment-seat ; and lo, I am HE STOOD AND CRIED. 29 with you in the present pilgrimage. This Christ cannot be divided : if we do not accept all, we get none. He will not be for us in that day, if we do not take him with us in this. " Come unto me!' It is to Christ himself, and not to any servant or substitute. You may come to the church, to the Lord's table, to the Bible, and get no good. Past all these attendants a needy soul must come, saying, as the spouse to the daughters of Jerusalem, "Saw ye him whom my soul loveth .?" Christ's work for sinners is not the fulfilment of a contract in which mere omnipotence is put forth. It is not to lift the dead weight of the fallen stars and set them in their place again ; it is an engage- ment between person and person ; it is a work in which love enters as the controlling element. In the redemp- tion of sinners love is first and last, the beginning and the end. His work is not to lift a weight ; it is to win an alienated heart. He loves ; and love is hurt when it is not loved again. The saying has become memorable, "The Bible is the religion of Protestants." It might be carried a step further, and so made to express a deeper truth, — Christ is the religion of Christians. The true Christian is the man who makes Christ his friend, who speaks to him when he lies down at night and when he awakes in the morning ; who cleaves personally to the man Christ Jesus, God with us, as his company to-day and his Redeemer at last. 2. To zuhom the invitation is addressed : "Any one." — The gospel is as free as the air or the sunshine. To you, 30 HE STOOD AND CRIED. O men, the voice of Wisdom calls : " Whosoever will, let him come." Search this Bible through : you will find many of the worst accepted ; but you will not find a single example of one rejected for want o/ some neces- sary quality in himself The little children, people in the busy, burning noon of life, and those who have grown old in their sins, — all are welcome. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. If you have gotten much of this world, and have made its thick clay the portion of your soul, yet come to Jesus and you are welcome ; he upbraideth not. If you have failed to win the wealth for which you laboured, and with weaned, soured spirit, quarrelled with God and men on account of your misfortunes, yet come, and you are welcome to Christ. Let the self-righteous leave his pride behind, and cast his filthy rags away, — the fine linen, clean and white, the righteousness of the saints, is ready to adorn him with. Let the intemperate turn his back on his tempter and come to Jesus : he will in no wise be cast out. The society of the redeemed in glory will be in one sense very various, and in another sense one homo- geneous company. They have come from various kinds and degrees of impurity ; but they have all washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. II. Consider the invitation now in its specific form — Let the thirsty drink : " If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." The spring has been opened, and it is flowing freely. HE STOOD AND CRIED. 31 The whole world may get life there as well as one man. All the fulness of the Godhead bodily is treasured up in Christ. On one side all things are now ready. Here \k the water of life, but where are the thirsty souls } I saw lately a letter written by a young invalid, who had been sent to Madeira to escape the rigour of a Scottish winter. It glowed all over with the praises of the place : the climate, the landscape, the lodging, the friends, the food, — all were of the best. Even in the matter of health there was neither sickness nor pain. But one plaint, not loud but long, ran through the letter like its woof ;^the key-note of its melancholy cadence was, " I have no appetite. If the appetite should return, I would be well." The next mail brought intelligence that she was dead and buried. In the midst of plenty, she died of want, — a want not of food, but of hunger. This is the ailment of which many souls are dying in the city and the land to-day. Wells of salvation are flowing, and overflowing, and flooding the land. The proclamation everywhere resounds, " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." Yet many perish, — • perish for want of thirst. I know not any pleasure of sense more exquisite than a draught of cool, clear water, when you are thirsty ; but few things are more insipid than water when there is no thirst. It is thus that Christ and his salvation are very sweet to one, and very tasteless to another. When the law of God comes in with authority upon a guilty conscience, — when the terrors of the Lord con- 32 HE STOOD AND CRIED. sume a soul, as the burning sun dries up the herbage in a rainless season, — then the convinced sinner understands what is meant by '' the water of life." The good news of mercy to the guilty through the sacrifice of Christ is as cold waters to this thirsty soul. When sin is gnawing at your heart like the living worm, and the judgment- seat is frowning before you like a burning fire, and the dark grave, like the bottomless pit, is opening to receive you, — oh then Christ is welcome, — his gospel is sweet to your taste. But to the whole-hearted these are unmeaning words. The form of doctrine to which they have been accus- tomed they do not indeed reject, but to them it has no meaning. They have never been thirsty, and therefore for cold water they do not care. Those who do their religion as a painful duty, or bear it as a burden which it is not safe to cast away, die strangers alike to the pain and the pleasure of God's children. They know neither the craving of thirst, nor the delight of getting that crav- ing satisfied. Here a fellow-creature is helpless. None of us could make a drop of water, although it were to save a brother's life. But our impotence on that side is not a misfortune, for God has provided for his world an abundant supply. On the other hand, although crystal streams were flow- ing through every valley, and pearly drops descending from the skies on every field, we could not create thirst in any living creature, if it were not implanted there by the finger of God. In point of fact, except in a ^q.\\ HE STOOD AND CRIED. 33 morbid examples, the creatures are on both sides very good. Water in abundance is provided for every Hving creature, and every Hving creature is stimulated by thirst to take as much as it needs. On neither side could we repair the machinery, if it were defective ; but the machinery on both sides is perfect, and needs no help from our hand. In the spiritual department we are equally helpless. We could not provide the supply, — the life from the dead to sinners. But God has provided this supply — in all fulness he has treasured it in Christ. But neither can we kindle in a soul the desire which will accept the mercy provided through Christ. He who in nature pro- vided the water, generates also in the creature the neces- sary thirst ; and He who in the gift of his Son has pro- vided the living water, must generate also in the soul the thirst. It is not enough to say that we cannot make thirst where it is not ; we cannot even explain what it is. If this body of brothers to whom I now speak had never experienced thirst, I could not, though I should speak with the tongues of men and of angels, convey to you a true conception of what thirst is. But if you should afterwards be thirsty, I might save myself the trouble of defining what it means. You know it without a word from me. It is precisely the same in the spiritual de- partment. Neither I nor any other minister can rightly show what it is to long for God's salvation, to those who have never experienced that desire. " Blessed are they 34 HE STOOD AND CRIED. that hunger and thirst after righteousness ; for they shall be filled." III. TJie manner of invitation — the pecnliar earnestness with which it is given. " In the feasty — The solemnities instituted of old in Israel all pointed to gospel privileges. The feast is now ; and while it lasts the word of Jesus falls on our ear, — the word, " Come unto me." " Li the last day, that great day of the feast!' — Great because it was last. There were seven days of it ; but now the seventh was nearly done. While this day now running its course is in its own nature neither greater nor less than other days, it is to some of the world's inhabi- tants greater than all other days of their life together. If one has lived twenty, or thirty, or fifty years, and is still a stranger to Christ when this day dawns ; if, more- over, this should be the last of his allotted number, — then this day is to him a great day. It is greater than a whole eternity to him ; for on it he is either saved or lost. " Jesus stood!' — He remained on the spot. He did not go away, wearied with waiting, or provoked by the people's neglect. When the foolish virgins returned from their search he was gone, and they were shut out. " Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." He is bending over you, like the sun in the heavens; so that if the blind eyes open now they will look on the Light of Life. Some of us may have been much surprised to find him waiting when we HE STOOD AND CRIED. 35 were at last made willing. Young man, he knocked at your door in your early youth; but you left him without, and kept your vanities as more congenial company. At another knock you ventured to speak to the Lord, and promised to arise and admit him ; but you fell in with other company ere your good resolution was executed, and Christ was again neglected. When at last some providence shook your foundations, and rent your cover- ings away, you thought that now, in your need, Christ would have none of you. You were surprised at the long- suffering of God our Saviour. When at last, deserted by all others whom you had preferred, you thought of turning to the Son of God, you found him still waiting ; and he upbraided not. " His is love beyond a brother's ; oh, how he loves ! " ^' He stood tipr — He took a prominent position, that all might see him. So to-day, in our land, he is lifted up. Our eyes behold our Teacher. ''He cried!' — This is strange. This is the world's way turned upside down. We are accustomed to hear those crying who are ready to perish, while those who go out to save are calm and silent. Here this method is reversed. The lost whom he saves are silent and satis- fied ; the Saviour, who brings deliverance, cries. They act as if they were full, and he as if he were needy. He cried ; why } All things are his in heaven and on earth ; what want is gnawing at the heart of him in whom all the fulness of the Godhead bodily lies t Ah ! it is the longing of his soul not to get, but to give redemption. 36 HE STOOD AND CRIED. He has a more eager desire to give pardon than any awakened sinner has to get it. It was he that said, out of his own experience, " It is more blessed to give than to receive." When the men of Jerusalem were buying and selling, marrying and giving in marriage, this Jesus stood on the mountain's brow and wept over them. They who needed salvation had dry eyes ; he who longed to give salvation wept, because they were perishing in sin. It is so to-day. He is the same Jesus ; and human hearts are still deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. How is it with you, friends .'' I find that this aspect of Jesus is very winsome to my poor, fearing, doubting heart. While I think only that I need him — while I look within, and discover all evil — when I look forward, and find the prospect shut in by the judgment-seat — Vv^hen I am oppressed by the thought of my sin and wretched- ness — when I throw out all my line to sound the depths of my own need, and feel no bottom, — I am apt to dread that Christ may not welcome such a one. I may be told, indeed, and told truly, that he will not cast out this empty, needy, worthless thing. Still, I find it hard to believe. It is like bidding me, while I stand on the earth, fling a line first fastened to my waist, fling it up- ward into yonder blue far heaven. I throw at it with all my might, but it falls down again by its own weight at my feet ; it will not go up — it will not for me go up all the way and hold. But after knowing that I need the HE STOOD AND CRIED. 37 Saviour, when I discover also that he needs me — that he wants me — that he longs to make me like himself, and take me to his presence ; when I know that he longs to give salvation more than I long to get it — when not only I cry to him, but when he cries to get me — oh ! then it seems easier to believe. Then, it is not I that by the vigour of my own arm must throw a line into heaven ; but the line, fastened to the throne of God, drops down from heaven to me. I have but to grasp it, and I am saved. " And from above the Lord sent down, And took me from below ; From many waters he me drew, Which would me overflow." (Ps. xviii. 16.) It is not, Who shall ascend into heaven } that is, to bring Christ down ; but the word is nigh thee — his own word. He cried, saying, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." III. "f)c shall dloiifj) gXt." " I/e shall glorify me : for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.'''' — John xvi. 14. HERE is one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid. He is the way. No man cometh unto the Father but by him. Whoever and whatever he may be whom we may meet as we cross this desert, our message to him must be in substance the same as Philip's to the Ethiopian. We must preach unto him Jesus. Neither is there sal- vation in any other. " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." But in preaching Christ, we should not neglect the ministry of the Spirit. To preach Christ without refer- ence to his Spirit, is to put ourselves in that Spirit's place. He made much of the Spirit's work in the estab- lishment of his kingdom : so should we. He ascended into heaven that he might bestow the Spirit, and counted that gift an equivalent to his sorrowing disciples for the HE SHALL GLORLFY ME. 39 want of his own presence at their head. It is from his own hps that we learn the necessity, the use, and the results of the Holy Spirit's ministry. The work of God the Spirit is an essential part of the eternal covenant. Wanting it, there would be no salva- tion to men, no glory to God in the gospel. Although the Redeemer had travailed on earth, he would not in heaven have seen of the travail of his soul, if the Spirit had not taken of his and shown it effectually to men. The sacrifice of Christ for sinners does not of itself save sinners, — not from any defect in the Redeemer's work, but because he is rejected and despised of men. Jesus said, " It is finished," when he bowed his head and died. No new sacrifice is needed. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. But after that sacri- fice has been offered, many perish. This shows that, in some sense, the sacrifice of Christ is not by itself enough to save a sinning world. Nothing more is needed to re- concile God to sinners ; but something more is needed to reconcile sinners to God. On the upper side, the simple presentation of Christ is enough : on the under side, the simple presentation of Christ is not enough. God the Father does not, when the Son presents himself, demand another mediator to induce him to listen to that Son's voice ; but fallen men need, and get, another Intercessor to open their hearts to a beseeching Saviour. On the one extreme is God, the offended Judge : on the other, fallen, prodigal men, with Christ, the Days- man, laying his hand on both. But although all is thus 40 HE SHALL GLORIFY ME. recidy, no transaction takes place. God needs no min- istry to make him willing to be, in Christ, reconciled to us ; but we need a ministry, even after Christ's work is complete, to make us willing- to be, through Christ, re- conciled to God. It is of the essence of the covenant, that those who by man's sin were reciprocally alienated, should both ac- cept Christ as Mediator, and be in him reconciled. But one feature or effect of the alienation is, that we are unwilling to accept the redemption which we so much need. The spiritually blind, looking outward, cannot per- ceive the beauty of the Saviour ; looking inward, cannot appreciate their own guilt and need. The perverse heart spurns away the Saviour ; and thus, though Christ is an all-sufficient Redeemer, men are perishing in their sins. " Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power." The power of God is needed, and in the covenant is, in point of fact, applied, to bend the hard heart into glad compliance with Christ's offer ; and the ministry of the Spirit is the form in which divine power is exercised for this end. As we have an Intercessor with God, God has an In- tercessor with us. The Son, in heaven, pleads with God for us : the Spirit, on earth, pleads with us for God. The Spirit's ministry is exercised on earth among men. In heaven it is not needed. But we must care- fully observe, that the Spirit is not another Saviour, sent to accomplish the object in which the Son had failed. It is of essential importance to mark the connection HE SHALL GLORIFY ME. 41 which, according to the Scriptures, subsists between the sacrifice of the Son and the ministry of the Spirit. When we say that men in enmity against God perish hi their sin, notwithstanding the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice, unless the quickening Spirit intervene, we must beware of supposing that the Spirit accomph'shed what the blood of Christ failed to achieve. When the enmity is removed, and the will subdued, through the Spirit's ministry, it still remains true that Christ crucified, pre- sented to the sinner, was the true power that melted and subdued him. Leaving out of view, for the present, the efficacy of Christ's sacrifice, when presented to the Father, in re- moving condemnation and obtaining favour for the un- worthy, we must trace the operation and effects of that sacrifice on the other side, in removing the enmity of a human heart, so that it is reconciled to God. It is a great error, on the one side, to imagine, that the pre- sentation of Christ in the Scriptures, or by a human ministry, is of itself sufficient to convert men ; but it is an equal, though an opposite error, to suppose that when the blood of Christ failed to move the man's heart, an- other power — the power of the Spirit — prevailed to move it. When we point out that the simple exhibition of redeeming love, in the life and death of Jesus, is not enough to change a sinner's heart, we do not in aught detract from the power of that love. We do not repre- sent its drawing power to be small ; we represent the resisting hardness of a carnal mind to be great. 42 HE SHALL GLORIFY ME. Some teachers, erring not in the positive doctrines which they proclaim, but in a certain one-sidedness, which omits the opposite and corresponding and balanc- ing truths, are in the habit of expatiating on the divine omnipotence of the love that radiates from Christ cruci- fied, and intimating that it needs but to be held forth in simplicity in order to win the world to God. But you are met here by the obvious fact that many to whom Christ is so presented continue in unbelief, and perish in their sin. Another ministry intervenes here, not incongruous with Christ's work, but provided, pro- mised, given by Christ to reveal and apply his own love. '* Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth : for he shall not speak of him- self; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me : for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you." In point of fact, to teach that the exhibition of Christ's love is the only power needed, and the only power applied to convert sinners, does not make the power of Christ's love greater, but the evil of human hearts less. If the heart of man were not deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, the lifting of Christ upon the cross would draw all men to him. When Jesus — divine love incarnate ! — went out and in among men, they condemned and crucified him. This is the peculiar condemnation of the world, that when the Son of God came to seek and save it, they would have none of him. After the descent of the Spirit, in HE SHALL GLORLFY ME. 43 the Pentecost, thousands of these despisers were con- verted in a day. But do we not learn from the Scriptures that the love of Christ is the greatest power that can be brought to bear on a sinful heart — that Christ crucified is in this respect the very power of God ? Yes ; we learn all this, and more in the same direction. This is the greatest power — this the only power — this the power to which the prodigal yields, when at last he consents to return to the Father. As there is none other whose merit will take away condemnation in God's sight, so there is none other whose manifested love can avail to overcome the enmity in man, and draw him back to God. But here we must insert the Spirit's ministry as a part of the counsel of God. Besides the objective inducement, there must be the subjective operation, I agree with the teachers who magnify the power and sufficiency of the Saviour's love to subdue and win the world to himself. I allow them to state it in the strongest terms, and to state it fully. When they have done, I take up the subject where they have left off, and teach further, that such is the hardness, the blindness, the death in sin in which mankind lie, that they remain unmoved even under this wonderful love : moreover, such is the long- suffering and patience of our God, that instead of giving men over when they refuse to submit to the Son, he sends through that Son the ministering Spirit, whose work it is to overcome the enmity, not without, but by means of the sacrifice and righteousness of Christ. God 44 HE SHALL GLORIFY ME. in the covenant, after providing Christ's love to draw men, has also provided a mighty work in secret on sinners' hearts to make them yield to that drawing. When the Spirit works effectually on a human heart, it is not a work independent of Christ's ; the Spirit's office is to apply Christ's work : " He shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you." Ask those who have, through the outpouring of the Spirit in pentecostal seasons, been renewed and forgiven — ask them to what they owe forgiveness and sanctifying : they will give the old answ^er — Christ is all my salvation. Christ crucified has removed condemnation, so that God is at peace w-ith me ; and melted out the enmity of my heart, so that I am at peace with God. The Spirit does not act without the motive, or supply another ; but he applies the motive which lies in redeeming love, and makes the heart yield to its power. When saved men enter rest, the glory of their redemp- tion wall all rise to God. They throw their crowns at the Redeemer's feet. They abjure all claim to the merit of providing mercy, and all claim to the merit of even accepting the mercy that was provided. They could not save themselves, and they could not come to the Saviour. Even when redemption was wrought by Christ, such was their deadness that they would have perished in presence of a complete salvation, had not the sovereign Spirit graciously come, and by a secret work in their hearts made them willing to close with Christ — made Christ so lovely that they were at length won. HE SHALL GLORIFY ME. 45 As we cleave on the one hand to Christ's work for us, we must cleave on the other hand to the Spirit's work within us. To reconcile God to us, removing the condemnation, is the part of the Son ; to reconcile us to God, removing the enmity, is the ministry of the Spirit. It is a mistake to limit the ministration of the Spirit to the revelation of Christ in the Scriptures : this is the Spirit's work, but this is not all his work. In as far as that revelation is concerned, the Spirit's work, like Christ's, is finished. But as our Intercessor with the Father carries on that part of his ministry to the end, so the Father's Intercessor with us carries on that part of his ministry to the end. The work now concerns not the object, but the organ : the defect now is not a dim light in the sky, but a blind eye on earth. I do not need the Spirit to display for me a brighter light, but I need the Spirit within me to open the eyes of my understanding. I do not need another ministry to bring from heaven another and greater love than Christ's ; but I need another ministry to break and open this hard heart, that the love already pressing on its gates may be permitted to flow in, that it may reconcile and purify me. I do not need any ministry to make Jesus more lovely ; but I do need a ministry to make me love Jesus. At this point men have struggled hard to rid them- selves of the humbling doctrine that they are as little able to accept the reconciliation offered, as to provide the reconciliation for themselves. It is as completely 46 HE SHALL GLORIFY ME. beyond human power to open a blind eye as to hang a sun in the heavens. From the Father of Hghts both good gifts ahke come down. Both the Christ who is the way, and the Spirit who leads us through it, are the sovereign gifts of God. It is from the region of human philosophy, not from the Scriptures, that objections are gathered. People raise a debate on the question hov/ man can be responsible, if God is sole and sovereign on both sides of salvation. I am not able to explain all these points to the satisfaction of all men : many of God's works are too deep for me, both in creation and redemption. I shall not fling away the gift, whether it be material or spiritual, because I cannot by my search- ing find out the Giver. If I do not believe in his Son, it is not less but more my own fault, seeing he has promised the Holy Spirit to them that ask him. I confess I have learned to love the divine sovereignty. I am not ashamed of it : I do not explain it away ; I delight to own that I am indebted to sovereign free mercy both for a Christ to believe in, and for my believ- ing in Christ. The Object to look upon, and the look upon that Object, are both the gift of God. Conspiracies have at various times sprung up in the world to deprive the Supreme of this peculiar glory — to deny him a will. Man would fain substitute a law of Nature for the living God. They conceive of an un- thinking principle like gravitation; they think of a power like the sea, lashing itself, and raging, and advancing without a purpose or a plan, floating a ship and sinking HE SHALL GLORIFY ME. 47 a stone with equal indifference, and continuing after- wards its unmeaning roar. I love the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans : it is a sublime protest against an atheistic human philosophy, and a transparent assertion of the doctrine that the potter hath power over the clay, and puts it forth too. I can have no com-munion with a merely mechanical omnipotence, — a sort of infinite ocean that heaves eter- nally by laws to which it is subject ; saving me if I continue to make myself sufficiently buoyant before I am cast on its cold, uncaring bosom ; and swallowing me up with the same relentless regularity if I make the leap before I be light enough. This omnipotent principle is not my Saviour. If I thought he should crush me, I would hate him ; and if I were saved, I would not thank him, — would not love him. I need as my Saviour the living God, who loves me, and whom I may love in return ; — the God who looked on me when I was lost, and loved me when I was worthless ; who saved me from hell, and made me his child. I need from my God, not merely a general aspect of benevolence towards the world, under which some of the most vigorous agonizers may struggle into heaven ; I need not only permission to save myself, but a hope that the Infinite sees me, knows me, pities me, loves me, grasps me, and holds me in the hollow of his hand, safe against all dangers, until he bring me to his eternal rest. My God is he who, after giving Christ for my redemption, gives the Spirit to quicken me and unite me to Christ. If there were a 48 HE SHALL GLORIFY ME. true vine growing in the ground beside me, and I were a branch severed, rootless, fruitless, ready to die, and sure when dead to be burned, what would the living vine be to me, unless a kind and skilful hand should graff me in and give me life ? The gospel is nothing to me unless I am permitted to attribute a will to my God ; unless I am indebted to that free will for all my salvation first and last, — for the pardon-price and for the renewing power. Do not tell me of a God who stands in high heaven, with its gates open, permitting all to arise and enter who will or can : tell me, as the Bible does, of a God who not only receives me if I am willing of my own accord, but who comes by his Spirit into my heart while it is unwilling, and makes it willing by his power. A Saviour who stands in heaven pledged to receive me after I can say, " Lord, I believe," is not enough for me : I need a Saviour who will rend the heavens and come down when I cry from the depths, " Lord, help my unbelief" It is necessary that we should take now one side into view and now another, in an effort rightly to divide the word of truth ; but both sides lie in the Scriptures. Jesus, revealing the Father, gave the Parable of the Lost Sheep and the Parable of the Prodigal. The lost sheep is sought, found, and carried home ; yet the prodigal comes to himself, arises, and goes of his own will and on his own feet to the Father. As the Saviour's work for sinners does not supersede the sinner's duty to follow Christ, so the Spirit's work in sinners does not supersede HE SHALL GLORIFY ME. 49 repentance and believing in the sinner himself. It is the Spirit that quickens the dead ; and yet the command of the Scriptures is, "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light ! " If any should neglect to obey the command, on the alleged ground that if the Spirit sovereignly quicken him he will live, and if the Spirit is withheld he will remain unconverted, whatever exertions he may make, — he is allowing a philosophical speculation to interpose between his soul and his Saviour. The difficulty does not lie in the domain of religion at all ; it is a subtle speculation of a human brain permitted to rise up like a mist and spread until it has darkened both heaven and earth. The matter is set down with abundant plainness in the Scriptures. Not only work out your own salva- tion with fear and trembling, although it is God that worketh in you ; but work out your own salvation, /(9r it is God that worketh in you. The promise of the Spirit to enlighten and enliven, so far from being intended to hinder, is meant to help your own effort to turn and live. Here are two great rocks, at some distance from each other, rising from the sea. On this one you may safely stand, and on that one you may safely stand. You believe that though the two are separated above the water, and stand far apart, they are united in their roots far beneath. You have no difficulty in taking your stand alternately on both, and in believing that they are united in unseen depths ; but if you should attempt personally to trace the one rock to the other, — to feel with your (512; 4 50 HE SHALL GLORIFY ME. hands beneath the water all the way over from this to that, — you would be lost in those waters that cover and conceal their union. It is thus that faith accepts both the truths revealed, — the sovereign act of God when he breathes new life into the dead, and the freedom of a human being when the alternative "Repent or perish" is placed before him. Do your part altJwtigJi God does his : do yours hopefully, because you are not left alone to do it. The Spirit of God is in Scripture compared to air — to breath. Indeed the word is borrowed from the lower sphere for use in the higher. Christ taught Nicodemus that the Spirit, in conversion, is like the wind. Now, observe how abundant the material breath is, and how near to each of us. How vast the atmospheric ocean, and how closely it wraps itself round our world, and presses upon every part of our frame always ! So vast is the ocean, that it has in all ages been a favourite emblem of eternity and infinitude ; but the sea of air is immensely greater than the sea of water. The water covers the earth partially ; the air covers it all. And the upper ocean is many times deeper than the lower. Both in its universality and its vastness it is a much better emblem of infinitude than the ocean of water. And see how closely it lies to hand, and how easily it is reached for use ! It is not necessary to put forth an effort to obtain it for life. " Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it." Let a man but gasp, and he gets it in abundance. The moment that there is an emptiness in HE SHALL GLORIFY ME, 51 your breast the breath of Hfe rushes in. In this matter you have but to hunger, and you are forthwith filled. The Giver of this plentiful supply in nature is not more niggard of his spiritual gifts. "Ye give good gifts to your children ; how much more will your Father in heaven give the Spirit to them that ask him.^" "Ask, and ye shall receive." Ye that are fathers in the flesh know well how you take pleasure in giving good gifts to your children. Although the young have an advan- tage over us in many respects, we who are parents have in this an advantage over the children. When I was a child, I was conscious that I was so much a burden to my father, that, although he supplied all my wants, I found it hard to believe that he did it willingly or took any pleasure in the act. I know better now. Not only when they ask, but before they can ask. Before the infant's lips can articulate a word, we grow skilful in interpreting its looks and cries, — we run to fetch the thing we think it wants. These beautiful affections, the planting of the Lord in our own being, will be wit- nesses against us if we maintain a distant reserve toward our Father in heaven, and suspect him of unwillingness to bestow the best gifts. Specifically and expressly, as we know how to give good gifts unto our children, our Father in heaven will much more give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him. But pant for the Spirit, and the aching, inarticulate emptiness, will draw the Spirit in. IV. "f)c shall k ^atisficb." He shall see of tlie travail of his soul, and shall he satisfied. " Isaiah liii. ii. O ancient prophet gives clearer testimony to Christ than Isaiah ; and nowhere else does Isaiah more articulately proclaim the gospel than here. In no other portion of the Old Testament are the person and work of Immanuel more distinctly revealed. This is one of those lattices in heaven at which the Inheritor of its glory shows himself to the weeping but watchful eye of a ransomed Church, kindling the very love of espousals in an otherwise dark and widowed breast. Let us draw near in company to behold this great sight, a suffering Saviour, — a man burning in the fire of God's anger against sin, and yet not consumed, because that Man of sorrows is also the eternal God. In this chapter the prophet describes first the suffering of Christ, and then his triumph : in the earlier portion the Son is seen going forth weeping, and bearing precious seed ; in the later portion he is seen coming again with HE SHALL BE SA TISFIED. 53 rejoicing-, bringing his sheaves with him. In the middle of verse tenth the description of the suffering ceases, and the fruits of victory begin to appear — " He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied." The text presents Christ's completed work in a poi-nt of view different from that in which we are most accus- tomed to regard it. The precise subject to which our attention is invited is not what Christ is to believers, but what believers are to Christ. The satisfaction of which the prophet speaks is not the joy of a sinner in the Saviour who redeems him, but the joy of the Saviour over sinners whom he has redeemed. The redemption of the lost is still the grand object of contemplation ; but here it is contemplated as seen, not from earth, but from heaven. We find here not a company of fallen men looking unto Jesus, that they may be saved ; but Jesus looking on a company of the saved, that he may be satisfied. On the Sabbath of our communion we are wont to contemplate, in some of their aspects, '*the sufi'erings of Christ," and this day shall be no exception to the rule ; but I would fain ascend to his own stand-point, and see those sufferings in the light in which they appear to him- self We are invited to consider, not what we get out of him, but what he gets out of us. It is the same finished work which we have been wont to gaze upon since first we learned the truth ; but we look on it now, not for the 54 HE SHALL BE SA TL SPIED. safety that it brings to Christians, but for the satisfaction that it affords to Christ. It would be pleasant and profitable if we could occa- sionally rise above the selfish, even in spiritual things, and reach the sphere of generous emotions : if, through the quickening Spirit, we could get past even the desire of good for ourselves, and, in sympathy with the Lord that bought us, partake of the joy that fills his soul as he sees the success of his undertaking, we should as- suredly be in a suitable frame for showing forth the Lord's death. It is good to look from the place of a needy sinner upwards in hope to the Lord ; but it is better, after having tasted that the Lord is gracious, to look with him, as he looks on the fruit of his suffering, and rejoice with him that his soul has not travailed in vain. It is good to get pardon and peace ; but it is better to enter, while yet in the body, into the very joy of the Lord, as he measures his triumph over Satan, and counts his gains in redeemed men, and anticipates his glory when he shall return in power to wind up the history of the world. I. The travail of his soul. II. The fruit resulting from the travail of his soul. III. The satisfaction which he enjoys. The first two briefly ; the third, as the main feature of the text, more fully. I. The travail of his soul. — This seems to be a short expression to indicate the whole of his humiliation, more HE SHALL BE SATISFIED, 55 especially in its inner and more spiritual aspect. His bodily sufferings, although they more easily touch us, — as being more readily comprehended, — are yet compara- tively a small part of his sorrow. His body was like our bodies, and the sufferings that had their seat there were more nearly allied to those that we are called to endure ; but the sufferings that had their seat in his soul lie be- yond our view, and beyond our comprehension. If we could measure the greatness of his soul, we might then form some adequate estimate of what his soul suffered when it became sorrowful even unto death. We may, however, take note of some of the ingredients that entered into the cup, although we cannot measure the degree of their bitterness : — 1. He who was from all eternity the beloved of his Father put his glory off, and put on our nature. 2. He severed himself from the company of the holy who loved and worshipped him, for the company of the unholy who in feeble friendship vexed or in open enmity crucified him. 3. ** He who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." I cling to the very words of Scripture here, because not being able to conceive aright the thing signified, I might employ improper word-signs. True it is that he experi- enced not the horrors which sin sometimes inflicts on a guilty conscience — in this sense sin could not touch the Holy One of God. But his holiness, instead of diminish- ing, aggravated the pain implied in becoming sin for his 56 HE SHALL BE SATIS EI ED. people. How he made sin his own, so as to bear it and endure its punishment, while himself remained holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, we cannot fully comprehend ; but we know that he so made sin his own that all his people are for ever relieved of their dark inheritance. And most certainly the holiness of his being did not render the contact of sin less, but more loath- some. In very proportion as his soul is holier than ours, the travail of his soul was deeper when sin was laid upon him as the Lamb of God, that he might take it away. 4. He met personally with the person of the wicked one in our quarrel. True, the strong man was by the stronger overcome, that the captive might be set free ; but the agony of soul lay in this, that Jesus the Son of God closed in a death-grapple with the spirit of evil. He must needs extend his arms and grasp the wicked one, in order to crush him. In the contact lay the agony of Immanuel's soul. In himself the eternal Son was beyond the tempter's reach. All the wiles of the devil could not touch him, either to defile or to grieve ; but when in our nature, and with our sin, he undertook all our cause, his meeting with the wicked one, if it was not to him danger- ous, because he is the Holy, was yet on that very account a heavier travail of his soul. He must needs meet and touch, and, as it were, embrace the devil and all his vile- ness, that he might quench the fiery darts of the wicked one for us. By his stripes we are healed. 5. His heart was often sore vexed by ignorance, self- ishness, unfaithfulness, even of his own selected disciples. HE SHALL BE SATISFLED. 57 Having left for them the society of the pure and blessed, he found the embrace of his friends Hke thorns in his breast. 6. The people for whose sake he came into the world — the Israel among whom he was born and bred — would none of him. Over Jerusalem, loved and longed for, he was left to weep bitter tears. 7. The office of the priesthood, which he loved and honoured as God's institute to hold up the promise of redemption, was by those who held it prostituted to reject the counsel of God. 8. But alone, and above all, incomprehensible to us, yet awful both for the part that we know and the part that we know not, is the desertion by the Father, and the final descent of wrath, due to sin, on the Redeemer's soul ; — when the Father's vengeance, and that vengeance just, fell full on the beloved of the Father; and that beloved One, knowing that it was a righteous retribution for the guilt that he had assumed as the substitute of sinners, could not challenge the sentence as unjust, but wailed like a suffering child, " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me } " Alas, even though our words were all right, how small a portion of the thing that they express can our minds take in ! In dealing with the travail of our Redeemer's soul, we are like a child writing down in figures the national debt of the country. The figures are soon written, and they are all correct ; but how much of the mighty meaning has entered the mind of that child t 58 HE SHALL BE SA TISFLED. II. The fniit that rcsidts from the travail of his soul. — It is not to the sufferings in themselves that the Re- deemer looks. Herein appears the greatness of his love. He looks over and past the travail of his soul, and fixes his regards on the results that it secures. The corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die ; but that fall and that dying, although they involved the travail of his soul, he. passes by, and regards with eager interest the fruit that follows — the life that grows upon death — life of many on the death of one — the life of his people from the dying of himself in their stead. The fruit is that twofold gain which was celebrated in the angels' song at the birth of Christ : " Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to the children of men." It is not merely the deliverance of a lost world from the doom it deserved ; it is the honour given to God by that deliverance. The means and end are linked together as the stalk and the grain in the cornfield : by the redemption of sinners God is glorified ; and this double blessing is the fruit spring- ing out of his soul's travail to which the risen Redeemer looks back yet with joy. Already God was glorious as the wise creator and kind preserver of holy beings who delight to do his will. Already God was glorious as the righteous judge and terrible avenger condemning the transgressors and cast- ing them away. But there is another glory that excelleth these: God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, desired to dis- play that peculiar glory. After exhibiting his goodness in one class of his creatures, and his severity in another, HE SHALL BE SATLSFIED, 59 he will concentrate both these beams of light upon one middle spot, so making it of excelling beauty. He will make mercy and justice meet, and will point to their meeting-place for ever, as the fullest display that can be made to creatures of their Maker's glory : that meeting- place of mercy and judgment is the incarnate Son — God with us. He is the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person. And when he has ascended up on high, he has left upon earth a people renewed into his image, in whom some faint outline of his likeness may be discerned. " Father, I am glorified in them." The Church that he has bought with his blood is the fruit that springs from the travail of the Redeemer's soul. The tempter bereft of his prey; earth beautified by grace, like myrtles and roses blooming in a desert ; a multitude whom no man can number admitted to stand round the throne in white clothing, — these are fruits that spring out of the travail of his soul. That suffering of Immanuel held deserved wrath back from falling on myriads whom God had made at first in his own image ; it permitted God's mercy to flow full upon the rebellious, without dishonouring the divine law; it circumscribed within narrower limits the desolation that sin had wrought in creation ; and proportionally enlarged the sphere of actual holiness and blessedness under the rule of the Supreme for ever. But most of all : it gave- vent to an infinite mercy, — ■ opened a channel wherein the infinite but pent-up love 6g he shall be sa tisfied. of God might freely flow. God is love : the exercise of loving seems to be, as men speak, the very life of the living God. The sacrifice of Christ opened a new world as a field on which love might flow. III. TJie satisfaction zvJiich the Savioiw experiences in the results of tJie travail of his soul. — Let us endeavour to realize that eager gaze with which the risen Redeemer contemplates from his throne the fruit of his own suffer- ings. It is not our look towards a completed redemp- tion which we need, and without which we must perish. This look is good and necessary ; but it is not the only good and necessary thing. This we ought to do ; but there is another we ought not to leave undone. We are too apt to let the near horizon of our own need limit our view. We think on the one hand of a sinner looking from his depths with strong crying and tears, looking to Jesus that he may be saved ; and of saints looking to that same Jesus with joyful songs as their substitute and their righteousness. But there are other lookers besides anxious sinners and joyful saints ; and other points of view besides those which these two classes respectively occupy. Angels look in wonder towards the most won- derful work of God. But besides all these, there is yet another eye more constantly and more intently fixed on the same all-attractive object — the fruit of the Re- deemer's sufterings — and that eye is the Redeemer's own. He does not pass by, when his saving effort has been put forth, as if that were all. He lingers on the HE SHALL BE SATLSIHED. 6r spot, and looks and longs to see men actuall)^ saved through his suffering for sin. " His delights were with the sons of men " from the past eternity, in anticipation of his saving work ; and now that the work is completed, he is not content that his suffering should be fruitless. As in his experience and according to his word, "It is more blessed to give than to receive ; " so, conversely, it is more painful to miss the greater blessing than to miss the less. He rejoices more in giving salvation than men in getting it ; and on the same principle, he longs more earnestly to bestow than even his own long to get mercy from his hand. The Head might adopt in even an in- tensified form the plaintive language of the members ; he might truly say, "My soul waiteth for you, more than they that watch for the morning;" — more than weary be- nighted watchers wait for the dawning of the day, the Lord who suffered for us longs and looks for the multi- tudes coming to himself for life, as the fruits of his dying. Why should He who inhabits the praises of eternity bend over these ransomed men, as if they were his only portion } This work that God gazes on is the greatest work of God. In all the infinitude which his being per- vades and his power controls, there is not any work equal to this. When he beheld the result of his creating word, he pronounced it good ; but when he beheld the result of his redeeming work, his soul was satisfied. After all that the Son of God has seen in the suc- cessions of eternity and the contents of space, the end is 62 HE SHALL BE SA TISFIED. not yet ; he does not say, It is enough. There remains still a longing, still an unsatisfied desire. Passing all the glories of earth and heaven as Samuel passed the sons of Jesse, he does not fix in fullest complacency of choice until the last and youngest born passes by. Then he is arrested : This — this is he. This is he whom my soul loveth. This satisfies my soul. How comes it that this new creature is graven more deeply on the heart of the Eternal Son than all his other works 1 The text tells : those other possessions were created by his word, or fashioned by his hand, but this springs from the travail of his soul. " Can a woman for- get her sucking child, that she should not have com- passion on the son of her womb .'' " She may ; yet will not the Redeemer forget his own. This comparison suggests the reason of Christ's peculiar regard for those who have been redeemed by his blood. He has tra- vailed as in birth for them. His suffering in bringing these sons to glory has graven them on his heart. We speak of having Christ dwelling in our heart : it is well ; this is a great attainment ; it is specifically our hope of glory. But the converse is a greater thing : disciples dwell in his heart, his hope of glory in the great day. It was when his heart was poured out within him like water, in suffering for their sins — it was when he was melted in the furnace of the wrath of God, that their persons and their interests, their names and images, were printed into his being, never, never to be blotted out. The names of the tribes, though engraved deep in precious HE SHALL BE SATISFIED. 63 stones, might at last be worn off the high priest's breast- plate ; but the name and the nature, the sorrows and the joys, the hopes and the fears, of each believing man, are stamped on the memory of Jesus, so that they shall be for ever legible in the light of heaven. They were printed into him at the dread hour when his soul was made an offering for sin. It is because they cost him so much that he cherishes them so fondly. They lay upon his soul when it was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death ; and all the weight of condemnation which he bore went to impress their image on his heart. Now they are part of himself, continually before him. " Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me V The pardoning of sin is a unique and peculiar work of God. It is not with him such a common and everyday kind of operation, that he should do it and forget it as soon as it is done. We have no reason to think that in all the eternity of God's being, and in all his dependent universe, it has ever happened except this once ; here on our world, and in favour of our race. A thousand years are with the Lord as one day, and all the breadth of the world's history appears but as a point from the throne of the Eternal ; and so the exercise of mercy to sinners is one luminous point in infinitude. Might we not think, after the manner of men, indeed, but true as far as it goes — might we not think of God longing for the time ap- pointed in his own counsel for the exercise of the attri- bute in which he most delights } And when the fulness of time had come, might we not think of Immanucl, God 64 HE SHALL BE SA TISFIED. with US, luxuriating with pecuHar complacency in the outflow oi" his own compassion, — a compassion which in him is from everlasting the same, but whose objects in creation were now for the first time found ? This is not a limitation of the Infinite ; for it was his own wise counsel that so arranged the plan. We are limited creatures ; our capacity is small. When something is wanting to complete the filling of this little vessel, that something is not great. The long- ing for it is correspondingly feeble. But think of it, when the Son of God pines for want of what he loves and needs, how great his longing must be ! — how great the joy when he obtains all at length ! In proportion to his essential greatness as God must be the strength of his desire for what will satisfy him — must be the delight of his soul when he obtains it. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man, how much the Son of God desires to have saved men as the fruit of his soul's travail, how much he rejoices when he gets the satisfying of his soul. That which cost him less, he less enjoys. Without the Son was not any thing made that was made. He called the angels into being by his word ; he strewed the vault of heaven with shining w^orlds, and bade them by their movements show forth his praise; he furnished this beautiful earth, and restrained the sea within the hollow of his hand. As to all these, he spake and it was done ; he commanded and they stood fast. But to shield rebellious men from the wrath of God, and yet honour God's law by the act ; to cleanse the morally HE SHALL BE SA TISFIED. 6$ corrupt from the defilement of their nature, and restore them to their place as sons of God ; to call the spiritually- dead to life, and instil into the slave the spirit of adop- tion ; to redeem, too, the body from corruption, and give it a glory that should be suitable for heaven, — a word of wisdom and a deed of power will not suffice. These sons of God were placed so high, that when they fell, they fell into a great deep. To lift them up again, his soul must take their souls' place ; he must give himself an offering for sin ; he must take their place under the sentence, that they may obtain his in God's favour. He suffered, the just for the unjust : it is this which makes the ransomed so dear to their Redeemer. Those for whom his soul travailed satisfy his soul. Are there some here who have taken refuge in Christ, and have now peace in believing } You rejoice in your Saviour. I shall tell you another truth : your Saviour rejoices over you. Do you experience a secret shrinking from this announcement, as if it put you in a place in- consistent with the humility which becomes you in view of your own worthlessness } This shrinking is the result of a mistake ; the value that Christ sets upon the souls that he has saved does not rest on their worth. It is not your goodness ; it is his own love. Judge even by your- selves : if you should happen to be at hand when a poor man has fallen into the water, and is on the point of be- ing drowned ; and if you should, in obedience to the best impulses left in nature, plunge in, and with a strong arm rescue him who was ready to perish, you would that (512) 5 66 HE SHALL BE SA TISFIED. night have very pleasant reflections of the day. You would be happier than the man who by a sudden stroke has made a fortune. You are full of joy : you reflect on the travail, the risk and effort of saving ; you reflect on the travail of your soul, and are satisfied. Suppose the poor beggar whom you rescued should hear of your joy; suppose he should take it into his head that you were entertaining a very exalted notion of his worth ; and sup- pose that in a fit of modesty he should seek admission into your presence, and intimate, by way of diminishing your delight, that he is a man of very ordinary character indeed. You would resent the impertinent intrusion. Your satisfaction had not reference to his worth or his unworthiness : it had reference, on one side, only to his need ; and on the other, to those instincts of your nature which still remain true, and delight in the act of saving a fellow-creature from death. Thus it is altogether out of place for a believer who has been redeemed by Christ to shrink back from the doctrine of this text, as if it made much of his worth. It makes nothing of your worth. It acknowledges nothing on your side but the deepest want, and on Christ's side a supreme satisfaction in saving him who is ready to perish. Are there here some who have been in a measure con- vinced of sin, and have begun to inquire, " What must we do to be saved } " And are these held back from hope, as not daring to believe that the Holy One of God would come so close and do so much for them, and that because they are not good t " What think ye of Christ," brethren .? HE SHALL BE SATLSFIED. 67 You seem to think him a sort of Pharisee, who would associate only with the good, and turn away his head from a sinner. You seem to credit him with a disregard of the neediest, and a desire to keep company with those who will cost him nothing. Ah, brethren, it was for the unworthy that his soul travailed ; and when he sees, as the fruit of his sufferings, the unworthy trusting in his blood, this sight satisfies his soul. Search and see : per- haps this fear is a deeply disguised hypocrisy. Perhaps your inmost heart is unwilling to part with its idols, and sets up as an excuse for not coming to Christ, that it is afraid Christ will not receive such an one. Him that Cometh he will in no wise cast out. But are you willing to come } Are there some here who are Christians in word, but not in deed, — who wear an outside profession, but will not permit Christ to reign in their hearts. Ah, friends, I speak not at present of danger to you, I remind you rather of disappointment to the Lord. You are not get- ting a Saviour ; but more than that, the Saviour is not getting you. His meat is to do the will of Him that sent him, — that is, to win souls ; but you, by refusing to ask and accept his redeeming love, you are grieving Christ, you are mocking his tears, — you are giving him a stone instead of bread. V. ^h^ J[ir0t f romisc.