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tihraxy of trhe Cheolo^icd ^eminarjp 
 
 PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 Mrs. Charles Henry G-reenleaf 
 
 BX 972( ne 
 
 hootl), Catherine Mumford, 
 
 1829-1890. 
 " , rs on aggressive 
 

PAPERS ON 
 AGGRESSIVE CHRISTIANITY, 
 
PAPERS 
 
 ON 
 
 Aggressive Christianity. 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. BOOTH. 
 
 ^.oaboii : 
 
 International Headquarters: 101, Queen Victoria St., E.C. 
 
 Printing & Purlishing Offices: 
 
 98, 100, & 102, Clerkenwell Koad, E.C, 
 
 John Snow & Co., 2, Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row, E.C. 
 
 AND 15\ OltUER OF ANV BOOKSELLER. 
 
 1891. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The addresses contained in this little volume were 
 delivered during a series of services at the West 
 End of London, in the summer of 1880. That 
 they were used then of the Lord I had abundant 
 evidence, and on that account I have consented 
 to their reproduction in this form, hoping that He 
 may still speak through them to many souls. 
 
 I only regret that pressing public duties have 
 prevented the shorthand writer's notes being revised 
 as thoroughly as I could have wished, especially 
 as they are reports of what were themselves largely 
 unpremeditat ed utterances. 
 
 Catherine Booth. 
 London, December, 1880. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Aggressive Christianity . _ _ _ i 
 
 A Pure Gospel ------ 21 
 
 Adaptation of Measures _ - _ _ 4} 
 
 Assurance of Salvation - - - - 61 
 
 How Christ Transcends the Law- - - 81 
 
 The Fruits of Union with Christ - - 101 
 
 Witnessing for Christ - - - - 119 
 
 Filled with the Spirit - ^ ^ - 143 
 
 The World's Need - - - -• -161 
 
 The Holy Ghost --- = -- 177 
 
AGGRESSIVE CHRISTIANITY. 
 
AGGRESSIVE CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Mark xvi. 15. — " Go ye info all the world and itreach the Gospel 
 to every creature." 
 
 Acts xxvi. I0-I8. — ^^ And I said, Who art thou, Lord ? And he 
 said, I am Jesus ichom thou 2)ersecutest. But rise, and stand 
 npo)i thy feet : for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, 
 to malie thee a minister and a uitness both of these thinys which 
 thou hast seen, and of those thinys in the which I will appear 
 unto thee: Deliveriny thee from the people, and from the 
 Gentiles, unto tvhom now I send thee, to open their eyes, and to 
 turn them from darkness to liyht, and from the power of Satan 
 unto God, that they may receive foryiveness of sins, aiid 
 inheritance amony them which are sanctified hy faith that is in 
 me." 
 
 I WAS thinking, while I was reading the lesson, that, 
 supposing we could blot out from our minds all 
 knowledge of the history of Christianity from the time 
 of this Inauguration Service — from that Pentecostal 
 Baptism — or, at any rate, from the close of the period 
 described in the Acts of the Apostles, suppose we could 
 detach from our minds all knowledge of the history of 
 Christianity since then, and take the Acts of the 
 Apostles and sit down and calculate what was likely to 
 happen in the world, what different results we should 
 have anticipated, what a different world we should have 
 reckoned upon as the outcome of it all. A system 
 which commenced under such auspices, with such 
 assumptions and professions on the part of its Author 
 (speaking after the manner of men), and producing, as 
 it did, in the first century of its existence, such 
 
4 Aggressive Chrht'iau'dii. 
 
 gigantic and momentous results. We should have said, 
 if -we knew nothing of what has intervened from that 
 time to this, that, no doubt, the world where that war 
 commenced, and for which it was organised, would have 
 long since been subjugated to the influence of that 
 system., and brought under the power of its great 
 originator and founder ! I say, from reading these 
 Acts, and from observing the spirit which animated the 
 early disciples, and from the way in which everything 
 fell before them, we should have anticipated that ten 
 thousand times greater results would have followed, 
 and, in my judgment, this anticipation would have 
 been perfectly rational and just. 
 
 We Christians profess to possess in the Grospel of 
 Christ a mighty lever which, rightly and universally 
 applied, would lift the entire burden of sin and misery 
 from the shoulders, that is, from the souls, of our 
 fellow-men — a panacea, we believe it to be, for all the 
 moral and spiritual woes of humanity, and in curing 
 their spiritual plagues we should go far to cure their 
 physical plagues also. We all profess to believe this. 
 Christians have professed to believe this for generations 
 gone by, ever since the time of which we have been 
 reading, and yet look at the world, look at so-called 
 Christian England, in this end of the nineteenth 
 century ! The great majority of the nation utterly 
 ignoring Clod, and not even making any pretence of 
 remembering Him one day in the week. And then 
 look at the rest of the world. I have frequently got so 
 depressed with this view of things that I have felt as 
 if my heart would break. I don't know how other 
 Christians feel, but I can truly say that " rivers of 
 vrater do often run down my eyes because men keep 
 
Aggressive Christ icutihj. 5 
 
 not His law," and because it seems to me that this 
 dispensation, compared with what God intended it to 
 be, has been, and still is, as great a failure as that 
 which preceded it. 
 
 Now, I ask, how is this ? I do not for a moment 
 believe that this is in accordance with the purpose oi 
 God. Some people have a very convenient way oi 
 hiding behind God's purposes, and saying, ' Oh ! He 
 will do His own will.' I wish He did ! They say, ' You 
 know God's will is done after all.' I wish it were ! He 
 says it is not done, and over and over again laments 
 the fact that it is not done. He wants it to be done, 
 but it IS NOT DONE ! ' It is of no use to stand up and 
 propound theories that are at variance with things as 
 they are.' There has been a great deal too much of 
 this, and it has had a very bad effect. The world is in 
 this condition, and here is a system launched under 
 such auspices, with such purposes, with such promises, 
 and with such prospects, and yet nearly nineteen hun- 
 dred years have rolled away and here we are. How little 
 has been done, comparatively. What a little alteration 
 has been effected in the habits and dispositions of the 
 race. 
 
 But some of you will say, ' Well, but there is a good 
 deal done.' Thank God for that. It would be sad if 
 there were nothing done ; but it looks like a drop in 
 the ocean compared with what should have been done. 
 Now I cannot accept any theory which so far reflects 
 upon the love and goodness of God as to make Him 
 to blame for this effeteness of Christianity, and, so 
 far as my influence extends, I will not allow the 
 responsibility and the blame of all this to be rolled 
 back upon God. who so loved the world that He gave 
 
6 Aggressive Christianitg. 
 
 His only Son to ignominy and death in order to 
 redeem it. I do not believe it for a moment. I 
 believe that the old arch-enemy has done in this 
 dispensation what he did in former ones — so far 
 circumvented the purposes of God, that he has 
 succeeded in bringing about this state of things — in 
 retarding the accomplishment of God's purposes and 
 keeping the world thus largely under his own power 
 and influence, and I believe he has succeeded in doing 
 this, as he has succeeded always before, by deceiving 
 god's own people. He has always done so. He has 
 always got up a caricature of God's real thing, and 
 the nearer he can get it to be like the original the 
 more successful he is. He has succeeded in deceiving 
 God's people : — 
 
 Fird : — As to the standard of their own religious 
 life. 
 
 And, Secondly, he has succeeded in deceiving them 
 AS to their duties and obligations to the world. 
 
 He has succeeded, first, in deceiving them as to the 
 standard of their own religious life. He has got the 
 Church, nearly as a whole, to receive what I call an 
 ' Oh, wretched man that I am ' religion ! He has got 
 them to lower the standard which Jesus Christ himself 
 established in this Book — a standard, not only to be 
 aimed at, but to be attained unto — a standard of 
 victory over sin, the world, the flesh, and the Devil, 
 real, livhuj, reigning, triumphing, Christianity! 
 Satan knew what was the secret of the great success 
 of those early disciples. It was their whole-hearted 
 devotion, their absorbing love to Christ, their utter 
 abnegation of the world. It was their entire absorption 
 in the salvation of their fellow men and the glory of 
 
Aggressive Christianity, 7 
 
 their God. It was an enthusiastic religion that 
 swallowed them up, and made them willing to become 
 wanderers and vagabonds on the face of the earth — 
 for His sake to dwell in dens and caves, to be torn 
 asunder, and to be persecuted in every form. 
 
 It was this degree of devotion, before which Satan 
 saw he had no chance. Such people as these, he knew, 
 must ultimately subdue the world. It is not in 
 human nature to stand before that kind of spirit, that 
 amount of love and zeal, and if Christians had only 
 gone on as they began long since, the glorious prophecy 
 would have been fulfilled, " The kingdoms of this 
 world " would have " become the kingdoms of our Lord 
 and of his Christ." 
 
 Therefore, the arch-enemy said, ' What must I do ? 
 * I shall be defeated after all. I shall lose my 
 ' supremacy as the god of this world. What shall I 
 ' do ? ' No use to bring in a gigantic system of error, 
 which everybody will see to be error. Oh, dear no ! 
 That has never been Satan's way ; but his plan has 
 been to get hold of a good man here and there, who 
 shall creep in, as the Apostle said, unawares, and 
 preach another doctrine, and who shall deceive, if it 
 were possible, the very elect. And he did it. He 
 accomplished his design. He gradually lowered the 
 standard of Christian life and character, and though, 
 in every revival, God has raised it again to a certain 
 extent, we have never got back thoroughly to the 
 simplicity, purity, and devotion set before us in these 
 Acts of the Apostles and in the Epistles. And just in 
 the degree that it has approximated thereto, in every 
 age, Satan has got somebody to oppose and to show 
 that this was too high a standard for human nature, 
 
6 Aggressive Christ lanifij. 
 
 altogether beyond us, and that, therefore, Christians 
 must sit down and just be content to be " Oh wretched 
 man that I am " people to the end of their days. He 
 has got the Church into a condition that makes one, 
 sometimes, positively ashamed to hear professing 
 Christians talk, and ashamed also, that the world 
 should hear them talk. I do not wonder at thoughtful, 
 intelligent men being driven from such Christianity as 
 this. It would have driven me off, if I had not known 
 the poiver of godliness. I believe this kind of 
 Christianity has made more infidels than all the infidel 
 books ever written. 
 
 Yes, Satan knew that he must get Christians down 
 from the high pinnacle of whole-hearted consecration 
 to God. He knew that he had no chance till he 
 tempted them down from that blessed vantage ground, 
 and so he began to spread those false doctrines, to 
 counteract which John wrote his epistles, for, before 
 he died, he saw what was coming, and sounded down 
 the ages — " Little children, let no man deceive you : 
 he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is 
 righteous. He that committeth sin is of the devil ; 
 for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this 
 purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He 
 might destroy the works of the devil." The Lord 
 revive that doctrine ! Help us afresh to put up the 
 standard ! 
 
 Oh ! the great evil is, that dishonest-hearted people, 
 because they feel it condemns them, lower the 
 standard to their miserable experience. I said, when 
 I was young, and I repeat it in my maturer years, that 
 if it sent me to hell I would never pull it down. Oh ! 
 that God's people felt like that. There is the glorious 
 
Aggrcssiix' Cliridianltij. 9 
 
 standard put before us. The power is proffered, the 
 conditions laid down, and we can all attain it if we 
 will ; but if we will not — for the sake of the children, 
 and for generations yet unborn, do not let us drag it 
 down, and try to make it meet our little, paltry, 
 circumscribed experience. LET US KEEP IT UP. 
 This is the way to get the world to look at it. Show 
 the world a real, living, self-sacrificing, hard-working, 
 toiling, triumphing religion, and the world will be 
 influenced by it ; but anything short of that they will 
 turn round and spit upon. 
 
 Secondly : — Satan has deceived even those whom he 
 could not succeed in getting to lower the standard of 
 their own lives with respect to their duties and 
 obligations to the world. I have been reading of late 
 the New Testament with special reference to the 
 aggresive spirit of Primitive Christianity, and it is 
 wonderful what floods of light come upon you when 
 you read the Bible with reference to any particular 
 topic on which you are seeking for help. When Grod 
 sees you are panting after the light, in order that you 
 may use it, He -pours it in upon you. It is an 
 indispensable condition of receiving light that you are 
 willing to follow it. People say they don't see this 
 and that, no, because they do not wish to see. They 
 are not willing to walk in it, and, therefore, they do 
 not get it ; but those who are willing to obey shall 
 have all the light they want. 
 
 It seems to me that we come infinitely short of any 
 right and rational idea of the aggressive spirit of the 
 New Testament saints. Satan has got Christians to 
 accept what I may call a namby-pamby, kid-glove 
 kind of system of presenting the Grospel to people. 
 
10 Aggressive Ghristianity. 
 
 * Will they be so kind as to read this tract or book, or 
 
 * would they not like to hear this popular and eloquent 
 
 * preacher. They will be pleased with him quite apai't 
 
 * from religion.' That is the sort of half-frightened, 
 timid way of putting the truth before unconverted 
 people, and of talking to them about the salvation of 
 their souls. It seems to me this is utterly antagonistic 
 and repugnant to the spirit of the early saints : " Gro 
 ye, and preach the Gospel to EVERY CREATURE ;" 
 and again the same idea — " Unto whom now I send 
 thee." Look what is implied in these commissions. 
 It seems to me that no people have ever yet fathomed 
 the meaning of these two Divine commissions. I 
 believe we of the Salvation Army have come nearer to 
 it than any people that have ever preceded us. Look 
 at them. Would it ever occur to you that the 
 language meant, " Go and build chapels and churches 
 *•' and invite the people to come in, and if they will 
 " not, let them alone ? " " GO YE." If you sent your 
 servant to do something for you, and said, ' Go and 
 accomplish that piece of business for me.' You know 
 what it would involve. You know that he must see 
 certain persons ; and run about the city to certain offices 
 and banks and agents, involving a deal of trouble and 
 sacrifice; but you have nothing to do with that. He 
 is you7' servant. He is employed by you to do that 
 business, and you simply commission him to ' Go and 
 do it.' What would you tliink if he went and took an 
 office and sent out a number of circulars inviting your 
 customers or clients to come and wait on his pleasure, 
 and when they chose to come just to put your business 
 before them ? No, jou would say, ' Ridiculous.' 
 Divesting our minds of all conventionalities .and 
 
Aggressive Christianity. 11 
 
 traditionalisms, what would the language mean ? 
 " Gro ye ! " To whom ? " To every creature." Where 
 am I to get at them? WHERE THEY ARE. 
 "Every creature." There is the extent of your 
 commission. Seek them out ; run after them, where- 
 ever you can get at them. " Every creature " — 
 wherever you find a creature that has a soul — there 
 go and preach My Grospel to him. If I understand it, 
 that is the meaning and the spirit of the commission. 
 
 And then again, to Paul he says, " Unto whom now 
 I send thee, to open their eyes, and to turn theTn from 
 darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto 
 God." They are asleep — go and wake them up. 
 They do not see their danger. If they did, there 
 would be no necessity for you to run after them. 
 They are 'preocciupied. Open their eye«, and turn 
 them round by your desperate earnestness and moral 
 suasion and moral force ; oh ! it makes me tremble to 
 think what a great deal one man can do for another ! 
 " Turn them from darkness to light, and from 
 the power of Satan unto God." How did Raul 
 understand it ? He says, " We persuade men,"' Do 
 not rest content with just putting it before tliem, 
 giving them gentle invitations, and then leaving them 
 alone. He ran after them, poor things, and pulled 
 them out of the fire. Take the bandage off their eyes 
 which Satan has bound round them ; knock and 
 hammer and burn in, with the fire of the Holy Ghost, 
 your words into their poor, hardened, darkened hearts, 
 until they begin to realise that they are IN DANGER ; 
 that there is something amiss. Go after them. If 
 I understand it, that is the spirit of the Apostles and 
 of the earlv Christians; for we read that when they 
 
l2 Aggressive Clirisfiamfi/. 
 
 were scattered by persecution, they " went everT/^vhere, 
 preaching the word." The laity, the new converts, 
 the young babes in Christ. It does not mean always 
 in set discourses, and public assemblies, but they went 
 after men and women, like ancient Israel — " Every 
 man after his man," to try and win him for Christ. 
 
 Some people seem to think that the Apostles laid 
 the foundations of all the churches. They are quite 
 mistaken. Churches sprang up where the Apostles had 
 never been. The Apostles went to visit and organise 
 them after they had sprung up, as the result of the 
 work of the early laymen and women going everywhere 
 and preaching the Word. Oh ! may the Lord shower 
 upon us in this day the same spirit ! We should 
 build churches and chapels ; we should invite the 
 people to them ; but do you think it is consiiitent witt 
 these two commissions, and with many others, that 
 we should rest in this, when three parts of the 
 population utterly ignore our invitations and take no 
 notice whatever of our buildings and of our services ? 
 They ivill not come to us. That is an established 
 fact. What is to be done ? They have souls. You 
 profess to believe that as much as I do, and that they 
 must live for ever. Where are they going? What 
 is to be done ? Jesus Christ says, ' Go after them.' 
 When all the civil methods have failed ; when the 
 genteel invitations have failed ; when one man says that 
 he has married a wife, and anotlier that he has bought 
 a yoke of oxen, and another that he has bought 
 a piece of land — then does the Master of the feast 
 say, 'The ungrateful wretches, let them alone?' 
 " No." He says, " Go out into the highways and 
 hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house 
 
/ Aggressive Ckristianity. 13 
 
 may be jilled." I will have guests, and if you can't 
 get theni in by civil measures, use military measures. 
 Go and compel them to come in. It seems to me 
 that we want more of this determined aggressive 
 spirit. Those of you who are right with God this 
 afternoon — you want more of this spirit to thrust the 
 truth upon the attention of your fellow men. 
 
 Oh ! people say, you must be very careful, very 
 judicious. You must not thrust religion down people's 
 throats. Then, I say, you will never get it down. 
 What ! Am I to wait till an unconverted, godless man 
 wants to be saved before I try to save him ? He will 
 never want to be saved till the death-rattle is in his 
 throat. What ! Am I to let my unconverted friends 
 and acquaintances drift down quietly to damnation, 
 and never tell them about their souls, until they 
 say, ' If you please, I want you to preach to me ? ' Is 
 this anything like the spirit of early Christianity ? 
 No. Verily we must make them look — tear the 
 bandages off, open their eyes, make them bear it, 
 and if they run away from you in one place, meet 
 them in another, and let them have no peace until 
 they submit to God and get their souls saved. This 
 is what Christianity ought to be doing in this land, 
 and there are plenty of Christians to do it. Why, 
 we might give the world such a time of it that they 
 would get saved in very self defence, if we were only 
 up and doing, and determined that they should have 
 no peace in their sins. Where is our zeal for the 
 Lord ? We talk of Old Testament saints, but I would 
 we were all like David. Rivers of water ran down his 
 eyes because men kept not the Law of his God. But 
 you say, ' We cannot fill liold services.' Perhaps not. 
 
14 Aggressive Christianity. ^3~ 
 
 Go as you like. Go as quietly and softly as the 
 morning dew. Have meetings like the Friends if you 
 like. ONLY DO IT. Don't let your relatives, and 
 friends, and acquaintances die, and their blood be 
 found on your skirts ! ! ! 
 
 I shall never forget the agony depicted on the face 
 of a young lady who once came to see me. My heart 
 went out to her in pity. She told me her story. She 
 said, 'I had a proud, ungodly father, and the Lord 
 ' converted me three years before his death, and, from 
 ' the very day of my conversion, I felt I ought to 
 ' talk to him, and plead, and pray with him about 
 ^ his soul, but I could not muster up courage. I 
 ' kept intending to do it, and intending to do it, 
 ' until he was taken ill. It was a sudden and serious 
 ' illness. He lost his mind, and died unsaved,' and 
 she said, ' I have never smiled since, and I think I 
 ' never shall any more.' Don't be like that. Do it 
 quietly, if you like; privately, if you like; but do it, 
 and do it as if you felt the value of their souls, and 
 as if you intended to save them, if by any possible 
 means in your power it could be done. 
 
 I had been speaking in a town, in the West of 
 England, on the subject of I'esponsibility of Christians 
 for the salvation of souls. The gentlemen with whom 
 I was staying had winced a bit under the truth, and 
 instead of taking it to heart in love, and making it 
 the means of drawing him nearer to God, and enabling 
 him to serve Him better, he said, ' I thought you were 
 ' rather hard on us this morning.' I said, ' Did you ? 
 
 * I should be very sorry to be harder on anybodj^ than 
 
 * the Ijord Jesus Christ would be.' He said, ' You 
 
 * can push things to extremes, you know. You were 
 
 
Aggressive Christianity. 15 
 
 ' talking about seeking souls, and making sacrifices. 
 ' Now, you are aware that we build the chapels and 
 ' churches, and pay the ministers, and if the people 
 ' won't be saved, we can't help it.' (I think he had 
 given pretty largely to a chapel in the town.) I said, 
 'It is very heartless and ungrateful of the people, I 
 ' grant ; but, my dear sir, you would not reason thus 
 ' in any temporal matter. Suppose a plague were to 
 ' break out in London, and suppose that the Board of 
 ' Health were to meet and to appropriate all the 
 ' hospitals and public buildings they could get to the 
 ' treatment of those diseased, and suppose they were 
 'to issue proclamations to say that whoever would 
 ' come to these buildings should be treated free of 
 ' cost, and every care and kindness bestowed on them, 
 ' and, moreover, that the treatment would certainly 
 ' cure them ; but, supposing the people were so blind 
 ' to their own interests, so indifferent and besotted 
 ' that they refused to come, and consequently, the 
 ' plague was increasing and thousands dying, what 
 ' would you in the pro\'inces say ? Would you say, 
 ' ' "Well, the Board of Health have done what they 
 ' ' could, and if the people will not go to be healed, 
 ' ' they deserve to perish ; let them alone ? ' No, you 
 ' would say, ' It is certainly very foolish and wicked of 
 * ' the people, but these men are in a superior position. 
 ' ' They understand the matter. They know and are 
 ' ' responsible for the consequences. What in the 
 ' ' world are they going to do ? Let the whole land be 
 ' ' depopulated ! ' No ! If the people will not come 
 ' to them, they must go to the people, and force upon 
 ' them the means of health, and insist that proper 
 ' measures should be used for the suppression of the 
 
16 Aggressive Christ Ian if y. 
 
 * plague.' It needed no application. He understood 
 it, and I believe, by tlie Spirit of God, he was enabled 
 to see his mistake, to take it home, and set to work to 
 do something for perishing souls. 
 
 ]Men are preoccupied, and it is for us to go and 
 force it upon their attention. Eemember, you can do 
 it. There is some one soul that you have more 
 influence with than any other person on earth — some 
 soul or souls. Are you doing all yoa can for their 
 salvation ? Your relatives, friends, and acquaintances 
 are to be rescued. Thank God ! we are rescuing the 
 poor people all over the land by thousands. There 
 they are, to be looked at, and talked with, and 
 questioned — people rescued from the depths of sin, 
 degradation, and woe — saved from the worst forms of 
 crime and infamy ; and, if lie can do that. He can 
 5ave your genteel friends, if only you will go to them 
 desperately and determinedly. Take them lovingly 
 by the button-hole, and say, ' My dear friend, I never 
 ' spoke to you closely, carefully, and prayerfully about 
 'your soul.' Let them see the tears in your eyes; or, 
 if you cannot weep, let them hear the tears in yoiir 
 voice, and let them realise that you feel their danger, 
 and are in distress for tliem. God will give His Holy 
 Si:)irit, and they ivill he saved. 
 
 1 was going to note that both texts imply opposition 
 ■ — for, He adds, "Lo, I am with yoa always, even to 
 the end of the world." As much as if He had said, 
 ' You will have need of my presence. Such aggressive, 
 ' determined warfare as this will raise all earth and 
 ' hell against you ; ' and then He says to Paul, " I will 
 be with thee, delivering thee from the people and the 
 Gentiles unto whom I send thee." ^^'hy would they 
 
Aggrcssifc Chrtathinifn. 17 
 
 need tins ? Because the Gentiles would soon be up in 
 arms against him, and indeed they were. 
 
 Opposition ! It is a bad sign for the Christianity 
 of this day that it provokes so little opposition. If 
 there were no other evidence of it being wrong, I 
 should know it from that. When the Church and the 
 world can jog along comfortably together, you may be 
 sure there is something wrong. The world has not 
 altered. Its spirit is exactly the same as it ever was, 
 and if Christians were equally faithful and devoted to 
 the Lord, and separated from the world, living so that 
 their lives were a reproof to all ungodliness, the world 
 would hate them as much as ever it did. It is the 
 Church that has altered, not the world. You say, ' We 
 should be getting into endless turmoil.' Yes ; " I 
 came not to bring peace on the earth, but a sword." 
 There would be uproar. Yes ; and the Acts of the 
 Apostles are full of stories of uproars. One uproar 
 was so great that the Chief Captain had to get Paul 
 over the shoulders of the people, lest he should have 
 been torn in pieces. ' What a commotion ! ' you say. 
 Yes ; and, bless God, if we had the like now we should 
 have thousands of sinners saved. 
 
 'But,' you say, ' see what a very undignified position 
 this would bring the Gospel into.' That depends on 
 what sort of dignity you mean. You say, 'We should 
 always be getting into collision with the powers that 
 be, and with the world, and what very unpleasant 
 consequences would result.' Yes, dear friends, there 
 always have been unpleasant consequences to the flesh, 
 when people were following God and doing His will. 
 'But,' you say, 'wouldn't it be inconsistent with tlie 
 dignity of the Gospel.' It depends from what stand- 
 
18 Aggressive Ghristiamfy. 
 
 point you look at it. It depends upon what really 
 constitutes the dignity of the Grospel. What does 
 constitute the dignity of the Gospel ? Is it human 
 dignity, or is it Divine ? Is it earthly, or is it heavenly 
 dignity? It was a very undignified thing, looked at 
 humanly, to die on a cross between two thieves. That 
 was the most undignified thing ever done in this world, 
 and yet, looked at on moral and spiritual grounds, it 
 was the grandest spectacle that ever earth or heaven 
 gazed upon, and methinks that the inhabitants of 
 heaven stood still and looked over the battlements at 
 that glorious, illustrious sufferer, as He hung there 
 between heaven and earth. The Pharisees, I know, 
 spat upon the humbled sufferer, and wagged their 
 heads and said, " He saved; others, himself He cannot 
 save." Ah ! but He was intent on saving others. That 
 was the dignity of Almighty strength allying itself 
 with human weakness, in order to raise it. It was the 
 dignity of eternal wisdom shrouding itself in human 
 ignorance, in order to enlighten it. It was the 
 dignity of everlasting, unquenchable love, baring its 
 bosom to suffer in the stead of its rebellious creature 
 ■ — man. Ah ! it was incarnate God standing in the 
 place of condemned, apostate man — the dignity of love! 
 love! Love! 
 
 Oh, precious Saviour ! save us from maligning Thy 
 Gospel and Thy name by clothing it with our paltry 
 notions of earthly dignity, and forgetting the dignity 
 which crowned Thy sacred brow as Thou didst hang 
 upon the cross ! That is the dignity for us, and it will 
 never suffer by any gentleman here carrjang the Gospel 
 into the back slums or alleys of any town or city in 
 which he lives. That dignity will never suffer by any 
 
Aggressive Christianity. 19 
 
 employer talking lovingly to his servant maid or errand 
 boy, and looking into his eyes with tears of sympathy 
 and love and trying to bring his soul to Jesus. That 
 dignity will never suffer even though you should have 
 to be dragged through the streets with a howling mob 
 at your heels, like Jesus Christ, if you have gone into 
 those streets for the souls of your fellow men and the 
 glory of God. Though you should be tied to a stake, 
 as were the martyrs of old, and surrounded by laughing 
 and taunting fiends and their howling followers — that 
 will be a dignity which shall be crowned in heaven, 
 crowned with everlasting glory. If I understand it, that 
 is the dignity of the Gospel — the dignity of love, I do 
 not envy, I do not covet any other. I desire no other, 
 — God is my witness — than the dignity of love. 
 
 Oh, friends ! will you get this baptism of love ! Then 
 you will, like the Apostles, be willing to push your 
 limbs into a basket, and iso be let down by the wall, if 
 need be, or suffer shipwreck, hunger, peril, nakedness, 
 fire, or sword, or even go to the block itself, if thereby 
 you may extend His kingdom and win souls for whom 
 He shed His blood. The Lord fill us with this love 
 and baptise us with this fire, and then the Gospel will 
 arise and become glorious in the earth, and men will 
 believe in us, and in it. They will feel its power, and 
 they will go down under it bj thousands, and, by the 
 grace of God, they SHALL. 
 
A PURE GOSPEL. 
 
A PURE GOSPEL. 
 
 Acts xxvi. 15-20. — " And I said, Who art t/iou, Lord? And he 
 said, I am Jesus ivhom thou persecufest. But rise, and stand 
 upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, 
 to make thee a minister and a witness both of these thinf/s 
 which thou hast seen, and of those things i?i the which I icill 
 appear unto thee: delivering thee from the people, and from 
 the Gentiles, unto ivhom uow I send thee, to open their eyes, 
 and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the ^Jower 
 of Satan ujito God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, 
 and inhentance among them lohich are sanctified by faith that 
 is in me. Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I icas not disobedient 
 unto the heavenly vision : but shewed first unto them of 
 Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts 
 of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent 
 and turn to God, and do works 7)ieetfor repentance." 
 
 The second indispensable condition we are going to 
 note this afternoon, to Aggressive Christianity, is, a 
 Ptire Gospel. I mean by that, God's own pure metal 
 — the unadulterated Gospel of Jesus Christ. 
 
 There seems, now-a-days, in the Church and the 
 world, as many different views of the Gospel as there 
 are of secondary matters and of minor doctrines. One 
 person has one notion of the Gospel, another has 
 another, until there has come to be a fearful dis- 
 traction in the minds of many who are constantly 
 listening to what is called the Gospel. May God 
 the Holy Ghost help us this afternoon to look at it 
 impartially and carefully. 
 
 And, firstly, let me try to define what is the Gospel. 
 " Oh ! " people say, " it is good news." Yes, thank 
 
24 A Pure Gospel. 
 
 God, ifc is good news, indeed — news without wliich 
 "we must all have been lost. It is the news of the 
 free, measureless, undeserved, reconciling mercy of 
 God, offered to me through the vicarious, infinite, 
 glorious sacrifice of His Son, to the end that I may 
 BE SAVED from sin here and from hell hereafter ! ! 
 But this news involves a great deal. It is the news 
 of a definite, practical end, involving conditions ; for 
 even good news to me involves certain conditions on 
 my part, if I am to })rocure the good which the news 
 brings. Then, secomllu, I will try to explain the 
 conditions on which the Gospel is available to me. 
 
 Let me illustrate this; and I am particularly aiixious 
 that you should all understand me. Supposing that 
 a province of this empire were in rebellion against 
 our Sovereign. Supposing that the people of that 
 province had trampled under foot our laws, and set 
 up their own in opposition ; and suppose the Queen, 
 in her gracious clemency, desired not to destroy these 
 rebels, but to save them, what would be the necessary 
 and indispensable condition in the very nature of the 
 case, in onler for her to save them ? Not merely a 
 proclamation of pardon. That would be a glorious 
 movement towards tlie result, liut there would want 
 something else ; for a })roclamation of pardon merely, 
 whilst the rebels remained in an unchanged state, 
 would only be giving them greater facilities for 
 further rebellion. Evidently, in the nature of the 
 case, it is a necessity that a change of mind should 
 be produced in the rebels themselves, for the Queen 
 not only wants to save them from destruction, but 
 to restore them to allegiance and obedience to her- 
 self, and, unless she does this, they will never become 
 
A Pure Gospel. 25 
 
 dutiful and obedient subjects. There will never be 
 anything but anarchy, confusion, and rebellion in 
 that province unless those rebels undergo a change 
 of mind. They must be brought back to allegiance 
 and obedience to the Queen. 
 
 Just so with God's proclamation of salvation. The 
 mischief is in us. Take the illustration of the Prodigal 
 Son. The mischief was all in him — not in his father. 
 The father loved him before he went away, and the 
 father loved him afterwards. The father's benevolent 
 heart yearned over him all the time he was away, 
 and many a time, perchance, he went to the roof of 
 his house to look over the expanse of country over 
 which the rebellious lad had gone and wondered 
 whether he would ever come back. The father's 
 heart was yearning over him all the time. How was it 
 that he could not be reinstated in the father's love 
 and in the family privileges ? Because there needed 
 a change of heart — a change of mind in him. If he 
 had come back to the old homestead with the same 
 rebellious spirit in him, the same desire to be free 
 from the father's oversight, the same unwillingness to 
 be put under the Father's dominion and discipline, 
 he would still have been a rebel and a prodigal. In 
 the very nature of the case, until there was the 
 necessary change, a wise and righteous father could 
 not pardon him ; he must insist, though he loves 
 him dearly, upon a certain change of mind before he 
 can consistently pardon him. 
 
 Just so. The laws of mind are the same when 
 operated upon by either Grod or man. This is not 
 laying any necessity upon God any more than He 
 has laid upon Himself. He has made us with a 
 
 3 
 
2r) A Pure Gospel. 
 
 certain mental constitution, and therefore He must 
 adapt the conditions and means of our salvation to 
 that mental constitution, otherwise He would reflect 
 upon His own wisdom in having given it to us at the 
 first. Therefore when he purposes to save man He 
 must save him rt.s man — not as a beast or a machine ! 
 He must save him as man, and he must propound 
 such a scheme as will fit and adapt itself to man's 
 nature. Just as the father might not pardon the 
 prodigal, irrespective of the prodigal's state of mind 
 and heart, so neither can God pardon the sinner 
 irrespective of the state of his mind and heart. 
 
 I know, by personal contact with hundreds of souls, 
 that thcn-e is an alarming amount of misunderstanding 
 and of what I consider false apprehension of the Gospel 
 of Christ at this point. Hence, you have speakers 
 saying, without anything to guard or qualify their 
 words, ' Only believe, and you shall be saved ; ' 
 ' Whosoever believeth hath everlasting life.' Blessed 
 and glorious truth, iilten rigidly applied, and applied 
 to the right characters ; but dangerous error, in my 
 opinion, when applied indiscriminately to unawakened 
 unrepenting, rebellious sinners. I have met with 
 disastrous consequences of this all over the land — so 
 disastrous that I would not like to repeat them here. 
 Now, I say, we should be careful to let the people 
 understand what we mean by the Gospel : I dare not 
 do any other. I am so satisfied of the thousands of 
 souls that are deceived at this point, that, while God 
 gives me voice to speak, I dare not but try to warn 
 them, and show them their fatal mistake. 
 
 Keturning to our illustration — you say, 'The man 
 is, so to speak, dead in trespasses and sins. How can 
 
A Pure Lrospel. 27 
 
 he see his own error ? How can he hiy down the 
 weapons of rebellion ? How can he, by himself, come 
 back to the Father ? ' Granted. Hence, Grod, in 
 His wisdom and love, has provided for that incapacity 
 which man has induced by his rebellion, by the gift 
 of His Spirit. You say, ' The parallel is not perfect 
 between your illustration and the thing illustrated.' 
 No, it is not in that point ; because temporal rebels 
 can find out by themselves the insanity and wickedness 
 of their course. They can see where it will lead them. 
 They can see the destructive consequences, and be 
 sorry for the course they have taken. They can lay 
 down their weapons of rebellion, and they can conform 
 to the conditions on which the Queen issues her 
 proclamation. You say, ' Yes, that they can do, but 
 this man cannot.' Of course, because he has so hardened 
 his heart that even if he can, he never tvill without 
 the Holy Spirit of God. Hence, God has taken 
 compassion on us, and sent His Spirit into the world 
 for this purpose — ' To convince the world of sin, of 
 righteousness, and of judgment.' Thus He opens our 
 eyes, and shows us our lost estate. Having, by the 
 Holy Ghost, made us realise our desperate condition, 
 then comes the Gospel to meet us just where we are, 
 on condition that we abandon our evil ways, and do 
 the works meet for repentance, which we are able to 
 do by the power of the Holy Spirit, as well as to 
 lay down the weapons of our rebellion and accept 
 of Christ, put our neck under his yoke, and pledge 
 ourselves in heart to follow Him all the days of 
 OUR life. These are the conditions involved, and 
 this is the end the Gospel contemplates, and there 
 you see the Gospel accomplishes its END in this 
 
28 A Fiire Go.^pd. 
 
 case. The heart of the rebel is won back to its 
 Lord, and the indispensable change has taken place in 
 the being hi'mself. He has come back to God. His 
 eyes are opened to see the evil of sin, and the 
 desperate state he is in. Tired of himself, and tired 
 of his evil ways, as the Prodigal was of the swine-yard, 
 he arises, leaves them and goes to his father. 
 
 But now I must stop to meet a difficulty which I 
 know will arise in many sincere minds, I feel myself 
 such a tender jealousy for the glory of God, that I do 
 highly respect this feeling in others, and if anyone 
 disagrees with my views, or my way of putting them, 
 through a feeling of jealousy for the glory of God, 
 they have my profound respect. You will say, " If 
 we are able to abandon our evil courses, and lay down 
 the weapons of rebellion, is that not saving ourselves?' 
 No, dear friends ; it is altogether different. You see 
 it is the indispensable condition of salvation in 
 everyone of the nine passages we read, and in many 
 others — that we abandon our evil ways. Now, what 
 does that mean ? A gentleman in a letter to me said, 
 ' We cannot save ourselves from heart sins.' Granted ; 
 but we can luili to be saved from them. Then, there 
 is a great distinction between those sins of the heart, 
 which are involuntary, and those deliberate transgres- 
 sions of God's law, which unregenerate men commit. 
 God requires me to abandon all that I CAN, as a 
 condition of salvation, and then, when He saves, He 
 will give me power to abandon all that I could; not 
 before. The Prodigal had to come away from the 
 swine-yard, the filth, and the husks, before he got into 
 the father's house, and sat down at the fathers feast, 
 but when he had done so, then the father said, ' Come 
 
A Pure Go.^pel 29 
 
 in,' and lie brought the best robe and put it on him, 
 and killed the fatted calf, and put the ring of 
 forgiveness upon his hand. Hence, as the old divines 
 used to put it, " You must wait for the Lord in the 
 path of His ordinances," the path of obedience, as far 
 as is possible to you. And is there any other way ? 
 Can the dr-unkard wait for Him while he abides at his 
 cup ? Can the thief wait for Him while he continues 
 in his diabolical trade ? Can any man indulging in 
 absolute open sin find the Lord ? Must he not, as 
 the Saviour says, cut off that right hand, and pluck out 
 that right eye ? He never can cleanse his guilt, but 
 he CAN cut off his hand, and when he does that, then 
 the Holy Spirit will come in and apply the Blood, 
 and do the cleansing. 
 
 Therefore, you perceive, I take the Gospel to be 
 aiming not merely at saving, but restoring us. If it 
 vvere merely to save me without restoring me, what 
 would it do for me ? As a moral agent, if the Gospel 
 fails to PUT ME EIGHT it will fail eternally to 
 make me happy ; and if you were to transplant me 
 before the throne, and put me down in the inner 
 circle of archangels with a sense of wrong in my heart, 
 being morally out of harmony with the laws of God, 
 and the moral laws of the universe, I should be as 
 miserable as if I were in hell, and should want to get 
 away. I must be made right, as well as treated as if 
 I were right. I must be changed as well as justified. 
 This is the Gospel put as clearly in our text as it 
 could be, and also the Epistles written by the Apostle 
 Paul, the great expounder of the doctrine of justifica- 
 tion by faith. It was through the lips of the 
 glorified Lord Himself, after He liad risen, to the 
 
30 A Ture Goqid. 
 
 great Apostle of the Gentiles, after the Gospel 
 dispensation was fully opened, that this most un- 
 mistakable commission was given, " Unto whom now I 
 send thee to open their eyes" What to ? Their sins. 
 As Peter opened the eyes of the murderers of our 
 Lord, on the Day of Pentecost, " Whom ye have 
 crucified and slain," driving in the convicting truth 
 of God until, in their agony, they cried out, "WHAT 
 MUST WE DO ? " He tore off the bandages which 
 Satan had wrapped around them, and drove them as 
 with the schoolmaster's lash, until he drove them to 
 the Cross of the crucified One. " Open their eyes " 
 — that is the first thing. Oh ! how my soul has 
 often shrunk and wept under the sense of the awful 
 responsibility this brings upon us Christians. The 
 world is asleep. Yes, friends, your relations, your 
 neighbours — they are asleep. They are preoccupied. 
 They are full of the world, and the things of the 
 world. They will not think — they will not see 
 — they will not look into the Word of Life. Your 
 responsibility comes here tenfold. Go and avake 
 thExm! You CAN DO IT, if you have the Holy 
 Ghost in you ! 
 
 Some people would have said to the Lord Jesus, 
 " What a great deal you are making of human agency, 
 for, after all, Paul is but a man, and you are setting 
 him to open the eyes of the unconverted, and turn 
 them from darkness to light, and from the power of 
 Satan unto God. Are you not making too much of 
 human effort ? But the Lord Jesus knew what He 
 was about. He knew that Paul had a power in him 
 which every really renewed child of God has — the 
 Holy Ghost — to equip him for this work; and He says, 
 
A Pure Gospel 31 
 
 " Unto whom now I send thee to open their eyes^ 
 Go and awake them to a sense of their danger. Take 
 them, metaphorically speaking, by the collar and shake 
 them and make them realise their peril, as you would 
 if they were asleep in a burning house! ! And then 
 when you have awakened them, what are you to do ? 
 Leave them alone ? No, no, for Christ's sake, no ! 
 Take hold of them by the mighty power of your moral 
 suasion and zeal, and love, and energy, and turn them 
 right round from sin and >Satan unto Grod. 
 
 Jesus Christ set Paul to do this, and Paul did it. 
 He says, " Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, 
 we persuade men." His was no meek and mild 
 putting of the truth, and leaving people to do as they 
 'liked. " Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, 
 we FERSUADE men, because we thus judge that if one 
 died for all, then were all dead ; " and, oh ! what 
 success the Lord gave him in his desperate enterprise. 
 What multitudes did he persuade, and succeed in 
 turning round from darkness to light, and from the 
 power of Satan unto Grod ! Turn them round ! ' Oh ! 
 but,' you say, ' if they are turned round from darkness, 
 which represents evil, to light, which represents 
 righteousness, are they not saved ? ' No, not yet. 
 This is only the change effected in their will, which is 
 beautifully exemplified by Paul in Eomans vii. — 
 willing to keep the law, willing to obey Grod, willing 
 to do His will, and follow Him; yea, struggling, but 
 yet unable; though they are brought round from the 
 voluntary choice or embrace of evil, and the voluntary 
 service of the Devil, round to the voluntary choice 
 and embrace of righteousness and the service of God, 
 they are not yet able to do it. 
 
32 A Pure Gospel. 
 
 Now, friends, don't say I said they tvere able. Don't 
 misrepresent me, as some people do. I will try to be 
 clear, and I say there is all the difference in the vjorld 
 between being willing to let Jesus Christ save me 
 
 FROM MY sins, AND SAVING MYSELF FROM THEM. It is 
 
 exactly this change in the attitude of the will which 
 God demands as a CONDITIOX OF THE EXERCISE 
 OF HIS POWER. It is so in all the miracles. 
 " Wilt thou be made whole ? " He says to the man 
 with the withered hand, " Stretch out thy hand." 
 The man might have said, ' Lord, what an unreason- 
 able request. Are you come to mock me in my 
 misery ? ' Oh ! but Jesus Christ knew what He wanted 
 in the man. He wanted the response of the man's 
 WILL. He wanted the man to say, ' Yes, Lord ; ' and 
 when He said that, the Lord put the strength into 
 the shoulder-bone, and He stretched it out, and it was 
 made whole. There are many souls just there — they 
 will not say, ' Yes, Lord,' to some condition which the 
 Spirit puts upon them. I could give you some heart- 
 rending illustrations on this point. I am satisfied 
 that this Gospel-enlightened England of ours is full 
 of people just at this point, who come crying, and 
 praying, and longing, as they call it, after God. They 
 come up to Jesus Christ again and again. They try 
 to believe ; they want to follow Him, but they are 
 kept back by the right hand and the right eye which 
 the Holy Ghost has told them they must cut off and 
 pluck out before He will receive them. They will not 
 do it, and so they are ever learning, and never able to 
 come to a knowledge of the truth. You must renounce 
 evil in your will. You must wilt to "obey the truth." 
 You must say, ' Yes, Lonl.' 
 
A Pure Gospel 33 
 
 I remember, on one occasion, in the West of England, 
 I had been delivering week-day morning addresses. We 
 had a blessed meeting on this particular day. We 
 began at half-past ten, and the Lord was so with us 
 that He sup])lied the want of refreshment till we had 
 it at 5.30. He made up for the want of dinner or tea. 
 A gentleman was there, with whose appearance I was 
 struck. He was tall, and intelligent, a man of about 
 forty or forty-five. He knelt down without any emotion, 
 more than deep solemnity, at the end of the Com- 
 munion rail. I had been talking about the reason 
 people walked in darkness — controversy with the Holy 
 Spirit. I said to him, ' My dear sir, have you had a 
 ' controversy with the Holy Spirit ? ' ' Yes,' he said , 
 ' I have had one for fifteen years. I am ashamed to 
 ' say it, and it has eaten up all the joy and power of 
 ' my Christian life, and I have been a useless cumberer 
 * of the ground.' I did not know till afterwards that he 
 was a deacon of the church, and had come up there in 
 the sight of all the congregation. I said, ' Well, my 
 dear sir, you know the Grospel as well as I do. It is of 
 no use to preach faith to you until you are willing to 
 renounce your idol.' He said, most emphatically, ' I 
 know it.' I said, ' Are you willing ? ' Oh, with what 
 tenacity the human heart holds on to its idols ! Though 
 he had come up to the rail in the face of that 
 congregation, so deeply was he under the power of the 
 Spirit, yet he hesitated. I said, 'Well, my dear sir, 
 you must make up your mind. In your case, it is 
 between the choice of this, whatever it may be, and 
 Christ ; ' and I retired under the pulpit pillars for a 
 minute, and left him to himself and the Lord. I lifted 
 up my heart to God for him, and then I went back, aud 
 
34 A Fare, 
 
 said, ' Will jon renounce it ? ' and, lifting up his eyes 
 to heaven, and, bringing his hand down upon the 
 Communion rail, he said, 'By the grace of Grod, I do,' 
 and his whole frame heaved with agony, but he stepped 
 into immediate liberty. His blessed Saviour was 
 waiting with arms wide open. There was only this 
 accursed thing which had stood between them, and 
 when he trampled it under his feet, and was willing to 
 forsake it, as a natural consequence, he sprang into the 
 everlasting arms, and received the assurance of salvation. 
 It was all over the town for the next fortnight. People 
 remarked, ' Did you ever see such a change come over 
 a man, as has come ov^er Mr. So-and-so ; he is like a new 
 man. PTe prays in the prayer-meeting with such 
 fervour. He was at the chapel doors, speaking to the 
 unconverted, and inviting them to come back. He is 
 visiting up and down the town — why, he's a new man ! ' 
 Was there any change in the Grospel ? Had he received 
 any fresh light ? It was only the old story — only that 
 he had put away the idol, and trampled under foot 
 that which was keeping the life-power of God out of 
 his soul, 
 r Here is another case. At some services in the West 
 of England, a gentleman, largely interested in an 
 unlawful business, came every night for five weeks, and 
 used to sit there, the picture of despair and wretched- 
 ness, till after ten o'clock. He went on in this way 
 until his friends thought he would lose his reason. He 
 was walking about his bedroom with his Bible open, 
 kneeling down every now and then, struggling and 
 wrestling and trying to believe; but every time he 
 thought of this ungodly business which he could not 
 give up, despair seized him, for he thought of his 
 
A riwe Goqjf'L 35 
 
 money — lie thought of the consequences to his family ; 
 until at last he said, ' Money or no money, I will settle 
 it.' He gave it up, came out, and got saved at once. 
 
 Now I think these illustrations make clear what I 
 mean, by the abandonment, the turning from the 
 embrace of evil to the embrace of righteousness as an 
 indispensable condition of forgiveness. Hence the Holy 
 Ghost has carefully matained this order — ' to open their 
 eyes and to turn them (round) from darkness to light, 
 and from the power of Satan unto Grod that they may 
 receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among 
 them that are sanctified by faith that is in me." You 
 see what a different thing this is to presenting Christ 
 to people just as they are, where they are, doing tvhat 
 they like. You see what a different Gospel it comes 
 to, insisting upon a thorough renouncement and 
 abandonment of evil as a condition of Jesus Christ 
 receiving the sinner. This was Paul's Gospel. Will 
 you give me any other definition of it ? Can you 
 explain it in any other way ? Paul goes on to show 
 us, how he understood : — " Whereupon, Oh ! King 
 Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly 
 vision, but shewed first unto them of Damascus and at 
 Jerusalem and then to the Gentiles, they should 
 repent and turn to God, and do works meet for 
 repentance." Was this like saying " Only believe ? " 
 without respect to any antecedent change of mind? 
 Can anybody show me anything here in the slightest 
 degree approximating to the Antinomian Gospel 
 which has been grafted on to some other of Paul's 
 utterances ? And yet surely the Apostle could not 
 contradict himself. His writings about faith must be 
 in harmony with this most unmistakable putting of 
 
36 A Pure Gospel. 
 
 the Gospel to both Jews and Gentiles. Moreover, did 
 he tell Agrippa and Festus to believe? No, he left them 
 trembling at his words, because they were not willing 
 to abandon their sins and put away the accursed thing ; 
 but to the Philippian gaoler, who said, " ]\Ien and 
 brethren, what must I do ? " arid who brought them 
 out and began to wash their stripes, thus doing works 
 rrieet for repentance at once, he said, " Believe on the 
 Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." Ah ; my 
 friend, you may try to get hold of Christ to your dying 
 hour and at the last be lost, while you are holding on 
 to your idols. If he could have saved us after that 
 fashion, we needed no Christ, we could have gone into 
 heaven without a Saviour ; but He came to save His 
 people fro7)i their sins, and while you are in love with 
 your sins, you may struggle and tremble as Agrippa 
 and Felix did, and as the young Ruler did, and you 
 will meet a similar iiite. You must let go your idols 
 and be willing that Jesus should come and save you; 
 not down among the dirt and mud of sin, but lift you 
 out of it : wash you : make you clean : and keep you 
 clean: circumcise your hearts; and put His law in 
 them; and then you shall know the gladness of His 
 salvation ! 
 
 I have some people writing to me in this condition. 
 If they are here this afternoon, let me say to them — 
 This is what you have to do — let go your idols and 
 say as tlie gentleman said of whom I have told you, 
 ' Poverty or no poverty, business or no business, 
 position or no position, suffering or prosperity; never 
 mind — Christ, Christ, I let go all for Thee ! ' 
 
 Have you forsaken evil ? Have you cut off the 
 right hand ? Have you plucked out the right eye ? 
 
A Pure Gofijiel. 37 
 
 I have people coming to me in services of this character, 
 groaning and sometimes worn to skeletons. They tell 
 me they are in distress, they have got into bondage, 
 they want the joy of the Lord and His daily fellowship; 
 and when I ask the reason, they generally say ' Well, 
 I dont know, but it seems to be want of faith.' Now, 
 I say to such people : 
 
 'Now let us see what this want of faith arises from.' 
 There must be a cause. I am afraid that sin lieth at 
 the door, and when we come to close quarters, we 
 generally find there is some idol, some course of conduct, 
 or some doubtful conduct which keeps Grod out of the 
 soul, and when this is confessed and renounced people 
 get the presence of God and go away rejoicing in Him. 
 It is so in nearly every case. God does not arbitrarily 
 withdraw Himself from His people. He wants to 
 dwell with them. We are His proper ab':''e. He has 
 promised to come and abide with his peopij,.-,^ and if He 
 does not, depend upon it there is somol/ing in the 
 temple offensive to Him, something with which he 
 will not dwell. Will you put that away, and 
 consecrate your hearts this day unto the Lord to be 
 His temple, His temple only, and leave consequences 
 with Him ? He will be able to look after His own. 
 
 Then, lastly, when you have come to this decision, 
 then look and li^^e ; take the final leap into the arms 
 of a crucified Saviour. With some souls who have 
 been the subjects of the drawings of the Spirit for 
 years, the difficulty is in the surrendering of their 
 wills. They have learned to reason with God ; they 
 have lost the little children's way ; they are afraid to 
 take the final leap, and there they stand before the 
 Cross, not conscious of anything between them and 
 
38 A Pure Gospel. 
 
 Clirist. What are you to do? What Paul told the 
 Philii:)pian gaoler to do — " Believe on the Lord Jesus 
 Christ ; " and you say, " What is that, and how am I 
 to believe ? " Wonderful how it has got mystified ! 
 Believe what? That He just means what He says; 
 and that when you come. He does receive — not He 
 will to-morrow, nor He did yesterday, but that He 
 does now, this moment. When did He receive the 
 sinners who came to Him on earth ? When they 
 came. Just the same will He receive you. 'Oh, but,' 
 you say, ' I do not feel right.' No, of course not. 
 Do you not see, you are to be saved hy faith. H you 
 are to be saved by faith, you must exercise faith 
 before you will be saved. If it is by faith you are to 
 be saved, you must believe first, and be saved 
 afterwards; if it is only the next second. 'But,' you 
 say, ' I do not feel it.' No, but you will feel it when 
 you have got it. You must believe it before you get 
 it, on the testimony of His Word — " I will in no 
 wise cast you out ; " " Him that cometh ; " ' Now I 
 come, Lord, I come. I have put away my idols ; I 
 have put away everything that consciously stood 
 between me and Thee. I ivill to serve Thee, I will to 
 follow Thee, I will to put my neck under Thy yoke for 
 ever, asking no more questions, but being willing for 
 Thee to lead me whithersoever Thou wilt. Now, 
 Lord, I come — Thou dost receive.' Leap off the poor 
 old stranded wreck of your own effort, or your own 
 righteousness, or your own sinfulness, or your own 
 unworthiness, or anything else of your own, into the 
 glorious lifelwat. It is on the top of the wave this 
 afternoon— another step, and you will be in — one 
 bound, and you will fed tlie loving arms of your 
 
A rure Gosj^el. 39 
 
 Saviour around you. Faith is trust, trust. He will 
 do for you what He promised. Believe that Grod does 
 now accept you ivholly for the sake of the sacrifice of 
 His blessed Son; that He justifies you freely from all 
 things from which you could not be justified by the 
 law. You stand a condemned, guilty, hell-bound 
 criminal, and nothing but His free, sovereign mercy 
 can save you. Throw yourself upon this, and the 
 moment you do so in real faith you will be saved. 
 Perhaps you will say, as a curate of the Church of 
 England, writing to me last week said, ' I refuse to be 
 saved by logic' Amen, amen. So did I, and I 
 struggled for six weeks because I refused to be saved 
 by logic — because I would have a living, personal 
 Christ. I admire your decision, my brother, if you 
 are here, but let this logic help you: nevertheless, 
 Jesus Christ has promised, if I come, that He will 
 receive me — then, I do come, and He does receive me, 
 for He cannot lie. Let that help you. Faith is not 
 logic, but logic may help faith. 
 
 Oh ! how I should rejoice if some of you were to 
 launch into the arms of Jesus this afternoon. It often 
 happens that while I am speaking souls do get into 
 the ark of God's mercy, and come, or write to tell me 
 afterwards that the Spirit has come, and he is crying 
 " Abba Father," and now they knovs^ tfiey have passed 
 from death unto life. They don't want logic then. 
 It is a matter of demonstration with them. When 
 you have come up to the place where saving faith is 
 possible to you, you have no more to do, no more to 
 suffer, no more to pay. By simple trust we are saved. 
 This is the way every saint on earth was saved. This 
 is the way every saint in glory was saved. This is 
 
 X 
 
40 A Pure Gospel. 
 
 the way "we are kept saved too, by lives'g daily, 
 OBEDIENT FAITH. The Lord help you just now. Let 
 the idol go. Put away the ungodly companion. 
 Grive up the unlawful business, or the worldly 
 conformity. Put away whatever has stood between 
 you and Jesus. Trample it under foot and press 
 through the crowd of difficulties as the H-omau did, 
 and go right up and touch Him with this touch of 
 faith, and you shall live and know that you are 
 HEALED, Then this Gospel will be good news indeed 
 to you, and Jesus will be the author of eternal 
 salvation to you, because you OBEY HIM ! 
 
ADAPTATION OF MEASURES. 
 
ADAPTATION OF MEASURES. 
 
 I HAVE chosen, tliis afternoon, five or six different 
 
 passages all exhibiting the principle of Adaptation, on 
 
 which I am to speak. The first is I. Cor. ix. 20-22 : — 
 
 " And unto the Je.rs I became as a Jew, that I mit/ht (/ain the 
 
 Jews; to them that are under the laiv, as under the la%o, 
 
 that I might (jain them that are under the law ; to them 
 
 that are tvithout lair, as ivithout law {being not without 
 
 la%v to God, but under the law to Christ), that I might 
 
 gain them that are tcHhout laiv." 
 
 To them that are without law as without law ; but 
 here he carefully guards himself by a parenthesis, lest 
 he should seem to favour a lawless Antinomian Gospel, 
 "not without law to God," not independent of the 
 great moral law, " but under the law to Christ," in 
 which is fulfilled all law. 
 
 " To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the ireak : 
 I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means 
 save some.'' 
 
 " To the weak became I as weak," — masterpiece of 
 human humility ! JNIost people want to appear strong, 
 but here is a man coming down, and appearing a weak 
 man, that he might win the weak. That is the 
 humility of Jesus Christ : — 
 
 The Lord give us the like spirit ! Again, I. Cor. 
 xii. 4-6 : — 
 
 " Xoio there are diversifies of gifts, but the same spirit ; and 
 there are differences of administration, but the same I^ord; 
 and there are diiersi/ies of operations, but it is the sam 
 Clod which workcth all in all." 
 
44 Adaptation of Measures. 
 
 Some people want the Spirit to work in everyone 
 alike, and in all times the same, but He chooses to 
 have diversities. Again, Galatians iii. 27, 28 : — 
 
 " For as many of yoii as have been baptised info Christ have 
 2nit on Clirist. There is neither Jerv nor Greek; there is 
 neither bond nor free ; there is neither male nor female ; 
 for ye are ail one in C%rist Jesus." 
 
 That is, so far as the privileges, duties, and 
 obligations of Christ's kingdom are concerned, there 
 is neither nationality nor sex ; and Galatians v. 6 : — ■ 
 
 " For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor 
 uncircumcision ; but faith ivhich icorketh by love." 
 
 All mere ordinances and ceremonies come under 
 the Apostle's term " circumcision." And II. Tiniotliy 
 
 iv. 2 :— 
 
 " Preach the tvord: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, 
 rebuke, exhort with all lonysufferiny and doctrine." 
 
 What a hue-and-cry there is because we Salvation 
 Army people save men " out of season ! " And Jude 
 22, 23 :— 
 
 ^^ And of some have compassion, makiny a difference: and others 
 save witlt fear, 2)ulliity tlumi out of the f re." 
 
 'Oh, no,' say some of our conventional friends, 'you 
 should not make a difference.' Nevertheless, in all 
 these six texts, the principle of Adaptation is most 
 distinctly laid down. 
 
 Now, we have spent the two last Sabbath afternoons 
 in trying to point out our view of the characteristics 
 of a pure Gospel, and I think we have succeeded in 
 doing this so clearly that no person who followed us 
 carefully, can imagine for a moment that we would 
 hold, or teach any adaptation of the Gospel itself. 
 As we stated before, we deemed this so above all 
 adaptation — so above any change, that we would not 
 
Adapfatioih of Measures. 
 
 J..% 
 
 be responsible for transposing its order, much less 
 altering its matter, that we would not take a dot off 
 one of the " i's," so sacredly intact do we believe the 
 Gospel of Christ in its matter ought to be kept. 
 We believe also that the order of Grod ought to be 
 strictly maintained ; that it is as rational and true 
 in philosophy as it is in divinity ; and that the way 
 the Spirit operates upon the minds of men is just 
 the same as ever. This we clearly and most carefully 
 pointed out, so that what we have to say this after- 
 noon, you will please bear in mind, has nothing to 
 do with the GOSPEL MESSAGE ITSELF. We have 
 tried to show our idea (or what we believe to be the 
 Holy Spirit's idea) of a pure Gospel ; but when we 
 come to speak of modes and measures, that is quite 
 another thing. I think, from the texts we have read, 
 and from many others equally plain and relevant, tlxit 
 we find a most easily-gathered truth running all the 
 way through the New Testament, namely, that forms 
 and ceremonies are nothing except as they embody 
 and express real spiritual life and truth. That 
 circumcision is nothing, and that uncircumcision is 
 nothing ; baptism is nothing, and being unbaptised is 
 nothing ; the Lord's Supper is nothing, and abstaining 
 from the Lord's Supper is nothing, in itself, as a matter 
 of form, for he embraces under circumcision all mere 
 outward forms and ceremonies ; all these are nothing, 
 
 but "KEEPING THE COMMANDMENTS OF GOD : " that is, 
 
 you may have all these performed upon you, and 
 regularly perform them j'ourselves, and be but sound- 
 ing brass and tinkling cymbals, if you keep not the 
 commandments of God ; for circumcision availeth 
 nothing, in another place, and uncircumcision availeth 
 
46 Adaptation of Measures. 
 
 nothing, l)ut faith — of what sort ? — that WORKETII by 
 LOVE : that proves its obedience by its deeds. There- 
 fore, we start with that fundamental truth lyiug 
 clearly before us in every page of the Xew Testament, 
 that forms and ceremonies, whatsoever they may be, 
 are nothing except as they embody and rejiresent keal 
 SPIRITUAL LIFE, and truth and action — action! Now, 
 it was the great sin — the crowning condemnation of 
 the Jews — that they had frittered away the spirituality 
 and practical bearing of the Divine Law, clinging to 
 those forms and ceremonies which were instituted only 
 to embody and symbolise it. Would to God they had 
 let go the form when they let go the spirit. Jesus 
 Christ wishes they had. He tells them it would have 
 been far better. He told them they were children of 
 the Devil, notwithstanding their holding on to their 
 relationship to Abraham and all the outward forms 
 and ceremonies of their ritual. 
 
 They had better have come out and avowed them- 
 selves unbelievers, than have gone on professing to be 
 the children of God, while they were doing the work 
 of the Devil. But they would not receive this 
 teaching. It was too cutting for them, and so they 
 would not have it. It was true, nevertheless. They 
 held on to the form whilst the spirit had gone. They 
 were "making clean the outside of the i)latter, but 
 within they are full of extortion and excess, appearing 
 beautiful outward, but within they are full of dei^.d 
 men's bones and all uncleanness." And, dear friends, 
 all corpses are very much alike, when the spirit is 
 gone out of them — one is found to be about as good 
 as anotlier, 
 
 Alas ! there is this tendencv still in our fallen 
 
Adaptation of Measures. 47 
 
 human nature. It is so much easier, or Satan makes 
 it look so much easier, to an unregenerate man, to 
 rest in a form, than to seek till he finds the spiritual 
 grace which that form represents. That is to say, it 
 is so much easier for an unregenerate man to be 
 circumcised, or to be baptised, as the case may be, to 
 partake of the Lord's Supper, to keep outwardly the 
 Sabbath Day, to abstain from acts of immorality and 
 open sin, and to be decently moral and religious — all 
 this he can understand and do for himself, and it 
 looks to him so much easier, and so it is, in the first 
 instance, than bringing his evil, unregenerate heart to 
 Grod for Him to circumcise it, and write His law in it, 
 as He promises to do under the new covenant. 
 
 Now, that is what God wants every man to do. He 
 wants him to bring this heart to Him, and let Him 
 renew it. He says, " I will circumcise your hearts to 
 keep my law." But, no ! the unregenerate man rests 
 in the outward form. He will not be at the trouble 
 to sacrifice his idols, and cry mightily unto Grod. He 
 will not seek until he attains the fulfilment of these 
 promises ; so he sits down and rests in the form. 
 
 Alas ! alas ! how many thousands in this so-called 
 Christian England of ours to-day are just there. They 
 have got the form ; they are like the Jews — they are 
 Pharisees with a Christian creed instead of a Jewish, 
 the same in character, only different in name. That 
 is all the difference, hanging on to the creed of Jesus 
 Christ, while they know nothing of its spirit, the form 
 without the power; a'nd they deny their professed 
 Lord every day. Oh! are there any of this class here? 
 My friend, my friend, if you never find it out until you 
 come to die, you will find it out then, but it may be too 
 
48 Adaptation of Measures. 
 
 late. May God, the Holy Spirit, help you to find 
 it out this afternoon, and bring that unrenewed, 
 unrepentant, evil heart of yours to the Cross ; bring it 
 to God, and wait, and weep, if need be, and struggle, 
 and knock, and cry, as He tells you, until He does 
 renew it and write His law in it; then the outward 
 form will be the expression of the inward grace. 
 Then the fruit \i\\\ be good, because it springs from 
 a good root inside. The Lord help you ! 
 
 This tendency to rest in form is just as great as 
 ever, and, instead of putting away their idols, and 
 bringing their conscience to be cleansed and kept 
 clean by the precious blood, prayerfully and carefully 
 walking before God, striving in all things to please 
 Him, people get an outside form, but live just like 
 the world around them, calling Jesus, "Lord, Lord," 
 but doing not the things that He says. Now, I say 
 that a pure Gospel requires that we bring our evil 
 HEARTS to God to be renewed, and that we resolutely 
 put away our idols, and that we wait on Him by the 
 Cross until He renews our motives, tempers, tendencies, 
 feelings, and dispositions, and makes us new creatures 
 in Christ Jesus. Instead of doing this, people go on 
 being circumcised or baptised, as the Jews did, and 
 they call themselves " Israel," as they did ; whereas, 
 of the spiritual Israel they are utterly ignorant. 
 They are the children of Hagar (as Paul says), and 
 not the children of the promise. May the Lord help 
 you to come and be made children of the promise ! 
 
 Now, as in the individual, there is such a tendency 
 to rest in form, so in the Church collectively ; hence 
 this tendency to a formal religion. Just as it was with 
 the Jews — their Temple service and the paraphernalia 
 
A<ht]_)iation of Measures. 40 
 
 of Judaism — was all in all to them, and they thought 
 that Jesus Christ was the most awfully severe and 
 uncharitable person who ever appeared on the face of 
 the earth, because He told them the truth. And the 
 same class of character presents the same attitude 
 now. We shall see when we get to the Judgment- 
 seat of Christ which is the true charity — that which 
 covers up things, or that which tears off the bandages, 
 and shows people their hypocrisy and, as we have just 
 read, reveals to them the secrets of their hearts. I 
 fear that we are very largely in the same condition 
 as the Jews were when Christ came. I say " very 
 largely," for I know that there are grand and glorious 
 exceptions ; but I speak of the great whole, and I 
 am backed up in this opinion by some of the most 
 thoughtful and spiritual men of this age. It is the 
 lamentation everywhere — this formality and death. 
 It reaches us from all parts of the land, yea, from 
 all parts of all lands. I once heard a great divine, 
 a leader of spiritual thought in his day, who has 
 recently passed to heaven, say, " I consider that the 
 wi'itings of the Prophets are far more applicable to 
 the state of the churches now than the writings of 
 the New Testament, for we are in the same lapsed 
 and fallen condition, as churches, as Israel of old was," 
 ►So many think, and so many teach. 
 
 If this be the case, WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 
 What would strike you should be done in this state 
 of comparative — spiritual eclipse ? Evidently it would 
 be madness to go on as we are. That will mend 
 nothing ! Somebody must strike and do something 
 worthy of the emergency. " There is no improving 
 the future, without disturbing the present," and the 
 
50 Adaptation, of Measures. 
 
 difficulty is to get people to be willing to he disturbed! 
 We are so conservative by nature — especially some of 
 us. "We have such a rooted dislike to have anything 
 rooted up, disturbed, or knocked down. It is as much 
 the work of Cfod, however, to " root out, and to pull 
 down, and to destroy," as "to build and to plant;" 
 and God's real ambassadors frequently have to do as 
 much of the one kind of Vv'ork, as of the other. This 
 is not pleasant work ; but what is necessary to be 
 done ? Is it not manifestly necessary that we should 
 go back to the simplicity, and spirituality of the 
 Gospel, and to the early modes of propagating it 
 amongst men ? 
 
 On the two last Sunday afternoons we tried to show 
 what was the pure Acts of Apostles Gospel — calling 
 men to forsake their sins, to cast away their idols, come 
 out from the world of the ungodly and be se})arate in 
 order that their sins might be forgiven, and that God 
 might receive them, and they become His sons and His 
 daughters. Last Sunday we spoke of faith and what it 
 would do for us. 
 
 Now, with respect to the outward manifestations 
 and propagation of the Gospel it is equally necessary 
 to go back. We have such a heap of rubbish to carry 
 away — the accumulated traditionalism of ages to go 
 through and dig under — that it sometimes takes a 
 considerable amount of time, , and force of character, 
 and a great deal of the Spirit of God to enable us to 
 do it. Nevertheless, it must be done if we are to reach 
 a better state of things. 
 
 It seems to me, in order to do this we should not 
 shrink from a recognition of our lapsed and faller, 
 condition. That was what the Jews did at the teaching 
 
Ac(ai)taiion of Measures. 51 
 
 of Jesus. They would not have His reproach. They 
 would not have the light because it condemned them. 
 They rejected it. They persisted they were the 
 children of Abraham — the children of the promise. 
 They persisted they were all right, and they pointed 
 to the Temple and to their ceremonialism as a proof of 
 it ; they would not have His testimony, would not 
 admit that they were wrong. Do not let us imitate 
 them. Let us recognise this state of things. Let us 
 look it fairly in the face. Honesty is always the best 
 policy both in spiritual and in temporal things. There 
 is nothing gained by ignoring a disagreeable truth. It 
 is best to face it. Now there it is and the best way is 
 to hail any ray of light that comes to us from any part 
 of the heavens, even though a carpenter should bring 
 it, as He brought it to them — or a fisherman, or a 
 woman. Never mind — let us hail the light and apply 
 it to ourselves. Let us bring our hearts and lives out 
 into its blaze, and examine them by it, and improve it 
 to our own salvation and to the salvation of others. If 
 the Jews had done that, they would have been saved, 
 and their nation. " If thou hadst known, even thou, 
 at least in this thy day," — this twelfth hour of the last 
 day — " the things that belong unto thy peace ; but 
 now" — because of thy obstinate rejection — " they are 
 hid from tliine eyes." The Lord help us to take the 
 light home to ourselves, each one. 
 
 We have seen that it is clearly laid down in the 
 texts I have read this afternoon, that the law of 
 adaptation is the only law laid down in the New 
 Testament with respect to modes and measures. I 
 challenge anybody to find me any other. While the 
 Gospel message is laid down with unerring exactness, 
 
52 Adaptatkni of Measures. 
 
 we are left at perfect freedom to adapt our measures 
 and modes of bringing it to bear upon men to the 
 circumstances, times, and conditions in which we live 
 ■ — free as air. " I became all things to all men." The 
 great Apostle of the Gentiles who had thrown off the 
 paraphernalia of Judaism years before, yet became as 
 a Jew that he might win the Jews. The great, strong, 
 intellect became as a weak man, that he might win the 
 weak. He conformed himself to the conditions and 
 circumstances of his hearers, in all lawful things, that 
 he might win them ; he let no mere conventionalities, 
 or ideas of propriety, stand in his way, when it was 
 necessary to abandon them. He who was brave as a 
 lion, and hailed a crown of martyrdom like a conquering 
 hero, as he was, yet was willing to submit to anything, 
 when the requirements of his mission rendered it 
 necessary. He suffered his limbs to be ignominiously 
 thrust into a basket, and himself let down over the wall 
 when necessary, for the success of his work. He 
 adapted himself to the circumstances. He was instant 
 in season and out of season. Oh ! what a hue-and-cry 
 there is about out-of-season Christianity ; " of some 
 making a difference " — pulling them out of the fire by 
 the hair of the head, if needful ! Never mind — save 
 them, SAVE them. That is the great desideratum. 
 Save them— pulling them out of the fire. Adapt your 
 measures to your circum^ances and to the necessities 
 of the times in which you live. Now, here it seems to 
 me that the Church — I speak ilniversally — has made a 
 grand mistake, the same old mistake which we are so 
 prone to fall into, of exalting the traditions of the elders 
 into the same importance and authority as the Word of 
 
Adaptafioii of Measures. 53 
 
 God, as the clearly laid down principles of the New 
 Testament. 
 
 People contend that we must have quiet, proper, 
 decorous services. I say, WHERE IS YOUR 
 AUTHORITY FOR THIS ? Not here. I defy any 
 man to show it. I have a great deal more authority 
 in this book for such a lively, gushing, spontaneous, 
 and what you call disorderly, service, as our Army 
 services sometimes are, in this 14th of Corinthians 
 than you can find for yours. The best insight we get 
 into the internal working of a religioiis service in 
 Apostolic times is in this chapter, and I ask you — is 
 it anything like the ordinary services of to-day ? Can 
 the utmost stretch of ingenuity make it into any- 
 thing like tliem ? But even that is not complete. 
 We cannot get the order of a single service from the 
 New Testament, nor can we get the form of govern- 
 ment a single church. Hence one denomination 
 think theirs is the best form, and another theirs ; so 
 Christendom has been divided into so many camps 
 ever since; but this very quarrelling shows the 
 impossibility of getting from the New Testament the 
 routine, the order, and the fashion of mere modes. 
 They cannot get it, because it is not there ! ! Do you 
 think Grod had no purpose in this omission ? The 
 form, modes, and measures are not laid down as in 
 the Old Testament dispensation. There is nothing of 
 this stereotyped routinism in the whole of the New 
 Testament. Why ? Now there may be some who 
 may have difficulties in this matter. I said to a 
 gentleman, w^ho came to me with this and that 
 difficulty about our modes and measures, ' I will meet 
 your difficulties by bringing them face to face with 
 
54 Adaptation of Measures. 
 
 the bare principles of the New Testament. If I 
 cannot substantiate and defend them by that I will 
 give them up for ever. I am not wedded to any 
 forms and measures. To many of them I have been 
 driven by the necessities of the case. God has driven 
 me to them as at the point of the bayonet, as well as 
 led me by the pillar of cloud, and when I have 
 brought my reluctance and all my own conventional 
 notions, in which I was brought up like other people, 
 face to face with the naked bare principles of the 
 New Testament, I have not found anything to stand 
 upon ! I find things here far more extravagant and' 
 extreme, than anything we do — looked at carefuFiy.' 
 Here is the principle laid down that you are to adapt 
 your measures to the necessity of the people to whom 
 you minister ; you are to take the Gospel to them in 
 such modes and habitudes of thought and expression 
 and circumstances, as will gain for it from them a 
 HEARING. You are to speak in other tongues — go 
 and preach it to them in such a way as they will 
 look at it and listen to it ! Oh ! in that lesson we 
 read what beautiful freedom from all set form and 
 formula there was ! What freedom for the gushing 
 freshness, enthusiasm, and love of those new converts ! 
 What scope for the different manifestations of the 
 S'Mne spirit. Everything was not cut and dried. 
 Everything was not pre-arranged. It was left to the 
 operation of the Spirit, and the argument that this 
 has been abused, is no argument against it, for then 
 you might argue against every privilege. Here is 
 abundant evidence that these new converts, each one, 
 had opportunity to witness for Jesus, opportunity 
 and sco])e to give forth the gushing utterance of his 
 
Adaptation of Measures. 55 
 
 soul, and tell other people, how he got saved, or the 
 experience the Holy Ghost has wrought in him. And 
 look at the result ! " If there come in one that 
 believeth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, 
 he is judged of all ; and thus are the secrets of his 
 heart made manifest, and so falling doivn on his face, 
 he will worship God, and report that God is in you of 
 a truth." What unkind things have been said of The 
 Salvation Army, because people have fallen on their 
 faces under the convicting power of the Spirit at our 
 meetings, but you see this is Apostolic ! And, oh, 
 friends, what a glorious service this would be ! You 
 say, it would look so strange. INlore the pity. More 
 the pity that this natural, easy, domestic, familiar kind 
 of testimony and witnessing of divine things should 
 have become strange. May it not be because the 
 experience which prompted it has become strange ? 
 May it not be that there is no more desire to testify; 
 because there is little to testify about ? May it not 
 be that there is want of the utterance of the Holy 
 Spirit through the tongue because there is less of it 
 in the soul ? Oh ! then, should we not make haste 
 back to those days of simplicity and power ? Should 
 we not pray to be set free from the traditionalism and 
 routinism in which Satan has succeeded in lulling 
 us to sleep ? I ask any saved man — Do you not 
 remember the gushing love and enthusiasm of your 
 first-found liberty ? how you longed to tell everybody, 
 and if you had been placed in such circumstances as 
 these Corinthian converts, how gladly you would have 
 testified to what Jesus had done for you. It was onl)' 
 the repressing, keeping down, and ultimately, I am 
 afraid the ail-but extingiiii^hing of the Holy Spirit's 
 
5Q Adaptation of Measures. 
 
 urgings that has led to the state in which many of 
 you now are, and also to the dead way in which many 
 of our services are conducted. 
 
 Now, let us look fairly at Ihese things. I maintain 
 that the only qualitication — the only indispensable 
 qualification — for witnessing for Christ is the Holy 
 Grhost. Paul, expressly, over and over again, abjures 
 all merely human equipment. He expressly declares 
 that these things were not the power, even where 
 they existed, but that it was the Holy Ghost. There- 
 fore, give me man, woman, or child, with the Holy 
 Ghost, full of love and zeal for God, and I eay it is a 
 great strength and joy to that convert to testify to 
 the Church and to the world, and it is the bounden 
 duty of the Church to give him the opportunity to 
 do so. The Lord is going to demonstrate in this land, 
 that He is not going to evangelise it by finished 
 sermons and disquisitions, but by the simple testimony 
 of people saved from sin and the Devil, by His power 
 and His grace. He is going to do it by witis'ESSING, 
 as He began. 
 
 Now, I say, read your New Testament on this point, 
 and you will be struck with the amazing amount of 
 evidence for this unconventional kind of service. The 
 world wants some more pentecosts. When shall 
 Peters and Marys be so filled with the Spirit that they 
 cannot help telling what God has done for them — 
 male and female, men, women, and children — like the 
 woman of Samaria, who, when she had found IHm of 
 whom Moses and the Prophets wrote, went and fetched 
 her fellow-townsmen and women to hear him. He 
 wishes you to do the same, and this is the way the 
 Lord is going to gather out His groat and glorious 
 
Adaptatioii of Measures. 57 
 
 kino-doiu in these latter days by the power of testimony 
 in the Holy Ghost. He only wants witnesses to be 
 able to go and say, " We speak that we do know " — 
 that is the qualitication. The Lord is multiplying 
 such witnesses. Bless His holy name. 
 
 But you uiay say — what did the Master Himself do? 
 Well, he adopted these very measures. I was so 
 struck with this, when someone said, " Why, you are 
 sending people to preach who cannot read or write." 
 For a moment J was staggered, but I asked him, 
 " p[ow many of the Apostles do you sup[)Ose could 
 read and write when they were first sent out? " And 
 then it was the questioner's turn to be staggered. 
 There is no reason to suppose, with but two or three 
 exceptions, that any of them could. Education then 
 was far more uncommon than now. It was not 
 reading and writing that was the great qualification 
 for preaching Christ ; it was knowing and seeing ! 
 It was not the power of eloquence, but it was being 
 able to cast out devils, that was the test. Give me 
 somebody able to cast out devils, and 1 don't care 
 whether they can read or write, or put a grammatical 
 sentence together. That is of no consequence whatever. 
 Why did not Jesus Christ call the doctors and scribes 
 of His day? There were plenty of them — highly 
 educated men with trained and disciplined minds. 
 He was amongst them in the Temple, when He was 
 twelve years old. He knew them. How was it He 
 did not select these ? He who could have commanded 
 a legion of angels, could surely have commanded 
 a few scribes and doctors to go to preach the 
 Gospel. Why not ? He acted on the law of adapta- 
 tion. He vvanted His Gospel preached to the great 
 
 5 
 
58 Adaptation of Measures. 
 
 masses— not to the select few. Not to the educated 
 "upper ten," but to the great masses of mankhid. 
 How was He to have His Gfospel so preached, but by 
 men like unto themselves ? They fled from the 
 educated doctors. They would not listen to the 
 doctors, and they will not now. It may be very 
 wicked, and obstinate, and foolish, but such is the fact 
 — they never have and they never will. Hence, Jesus 
 Christ, instead of working a miracle, which he never 
 did when it was unnecessary, chose the weak things 
 of the earth to confound the mighty. He would, in 
 the other case, have had first to have untaught all 
 those scribes and doctors almost all they had learned. 
 He would have had to set them free from the bonds of 
 traditionalism. He would have had to remould their 
 minds, and then equip them. There was no necessity 
 for this, when He found the fishermen ready to His 
 hand. Tliey were just the men He wanted. They 
 only required tempering with the Holy Ghost, and 
 they were ready for the work. They thought as the 
 people thought ; they spoke with and associated with 
 the people, and, in fact, were of them. As He wanted 
 the masses of men evangelised. He chose men from 
 amongst the masses to evangelise them. Here was 
 infinite wisdom, " I thank Thee, oh, Father, that 
 Thou hast hid these things from the wise and })rudent, 
 and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so. Father, 
 for so it seemed good in Thy sight." Ikit He had a 
 purpose in it, and the purpo.se was this — that the 
 Gospel might be propagated in all climes and 
 conditions of men, through any kind of an agent — 
 Greek, Jew, ]>arbarian, Scythian, man, woman, child. 
 Any person who has experienced its power in their 
 
A(]ai)f(Atloii of Measures. 59 
 
 souls may go and speak it to anybody they can get to 
 hear them and everywhere ! We are free as air and 
 sunlight as to our choice of agencies, and it is time 
 the Church woke up to this. The Lord have mercy 
 onus! Is there network enough to do ? It makes 
 my ears tingle and burn with shame wlten I hear 
 people saying, ' You must not send agencies here and 
 there, and we can't have our organisation interfered 
 with.' I say, ' Are all the sinners converted in your 
 neighbourhood?' Nay ; has every poor, lost, wretched 
 soul heard the name of Jesus, and the testimony of 
 His Gospel ? Are there not teeming thousands roun 1 
 about you who never heard His name, and who ca-.e 
 nothing for Him, who live every day trampling His law 
 under their feet ? For Chrisfs sake, send somebody 
 after them. If they will not have your doctors of 
 divinity and your polished divines, get hold of 
 fishermen and costermongers and send them ! Let 
 the people have a chance for their souls. Let them 
 hear, for if they hear not, how shall they believe. Oh, 
 they are dying for lack of knowledge — they are, 
 friends ; thousands, are dying for the lack of know- 
 ledge. It is quite a common thing for us to get 
 })eople into our services who say, ' I never knew there 
 was anything so pretty as that in the Bible. I didn't 
 know you were reading from the Bible. We never 
 heard anything like that before.' Hundreds of men in 
 this country were never in a place of worship, save to 
 be christened or to be married, and a good many, sad to 
 say, are living without being married. While we 
 have been standing UPON OUR dignity, whole genera- 
 tions HAVE gone to hell ! — if the Bible is true. How 
 much lonirer shall we stand there ? If Jesus had 
 
GO 
 
 Adaptation of Measures. 
 
 stood upon Plis dignity Ke would never luive come to 
 die between two thieves. The whole work of 
 redemption is a work of hamiliation, self-sacritice, and 
 suffering ; and if we are not willing to follow Him in 
 that, we may as well give up professing His name. 
 
 The Lord help us to go down, down amongst the 
 fishermen, amongst the poor, tlie weak, the unlearned, 
 the vularar, to " condescend to men of low estate." 
 
ASSURANCE OF SALVATION 
 
ASSURANCE OF SALVATION. 
 
 Romans viii. 3, 4. — " For what the L(tw could not do, in that it 
 vas weak fhroiu/h the flesh, God setidiny His omi Son in the 
 likeness of sinful Jiexh, and for sin, condemned sin in thejlesh : 
 That the ri(jhteousness of the Law miyht he fuljilled in us, who 
 walk not after thejlesh, but after the Sjn'rif." 
 
 I WILL try, by God's grace, as much as in me lies, to 
 deal with this subject in a way that shall not provoke 
 controversy. I do deplore this. I wish there was a 
 way of improving the future without disturbing the 
 present, bat it is a misfortune, I suppose, that there 
 is not, and, however carefully one may guard oneself 
 in trying to lead the Lord's people higher, there is 
 always somebody who will quibble and make objections 
 and take exceptions. But we cannot help this. We 
 must be true to our convictions of God's truth, and 
 to what He has taught us, and revealed to us by His 
 Spirit, for we speak the things that we do know, and 
 do see, and do handle of the Word of Life. However, 
 I will try to keep to ground on which I think all 
 really spiritual people will be agreed. We may go 
 a bit farther some day, but this afternoon we will just 
 go so far as we believe every real disciple of the Lord 
 Jesus will he willing to go with us, and, oh ! may the 
 Holy Spirit give us one mind and help us to see in 
 His light, and if there is anything we do not see in 
 His light, oh! that this very hour He may show it to 
 us, for lie knows that we are all willing to see, and only 
 longing and desiring to know the whole truth, as it is 
 
64 Assurance of Salvation. 
 
 in Jesus. Let every sincere soul put up this prayer 
 for liimself and for me, as I put it up for myself and for 
 you, that the Holy Spirit may lead us into all truth, 
 at any rate as far as it is important to our own 
 salvation and our practical exhibition of the salvation 
 of Christ to other people, for a dying world is hanging 
 upon our skirts. They are looking at us to find out 
 what religion is. They will not come to this Book. 
 They will not even hear about it, but they are looking 
 to us to find it out ; how momentously important it 
 is, therefore, that we should be truly living Epistles, 
 known and read of all men. We are epistles, what- 
 ever sort of doctrine our lives teach. We cannot help 
 ourselves, for while we profess to be the Lord's, we are 
 living epistles, known and read of all men. 
 
 Specially, then, I want first to look at the .3rd verse 
 of the 8th chapter. Now, I thought it would, perhaps, 
 be the most profitable way to look at this subject, and 
 would meet the experience of some who I know axe 
 here, to try to answer the question — 
 
 V/hereln does the Law fail to save us ? Then we 
 shall be able to see wherein and Jioiv Jesus Christ 
 transcends the Laiv. 
 
 First, then, the Law does not fail in giving a know- 
 ledge of sin, for it is by the Law, as the Apostle says, 
 that I know sin. Without the Law I was dead, so 
 dead in sin that I did not realise it at all. Its power 
 was so complete over me that I did not realise it 
 was sin, and, therefore, was asleep and comparatively 
 jiappy; but when the commandment came, "sin revived 
 and I died" — that is, to all hope of making myself 
 riiditeous. The commandment showed me the awful 
 chasm there was between me and it. The Holy 
 
Assiirance of Salvation. 65 
 
 Commandment, just and pure and good — and myself 
 imhol}^ impure, and unrigliteous. A light fi-om Sinai 
 flashed upon it, and I died in despair and utter help- 
 lessness. Thus, I say, the Law does not fail in giving 
 knowledge of sin, for it is by the liaw that 1 gel the 
 knowledge of sin. 
 
 Secondly. — Neither does the Law fail in begetting 
 a sense of guilt and condemnation on account of sin, 
 for it is by the Law agaiu that I get this. I not only 
 get the knowledge of sin by the Law, but I get the 
 sense of guilt and condemnation for sin b}^ the Law, 
 for the Law comes in and condemns me. It is the 
 spirit of death and condemnation to me : it says, 
 " you sliould have done this ; and because you have not 
 done it, you shall die." I feel that the Law is just and 
 good, and yet I feel that I do not keep it ; and, therefore, 
 I have the sentence of condemnation upon me because 
 I do not keep it. Then the Law does not fail in 
 begetting a sense of condemnation and guilt on account 
 of sin. 
 
 Thirdly. — Neither does the I^aw fail in producing 
 desire after righteousness and effort to attain it. The 
 Law begets in me the desire after righteousness, by 
 contrasting my condition with the purity and holiness 
 of God's law. I see the Law to be good and holy, I see 
 it to be desirable, and I desire to attain the righteous- 
 ness of the Law. I am speaking now of a convicted 
 sinner, as the Apostle did when speaking of the same 
 character. A convicted sinner sees the righteousness 
 and beauty of the Law of God. He sees that it is 
 holy, just, and good. He sees that it is intended to 
 make him holy, just, and good, for the Law is not sin, 
 as the Apostle says, but is ordained unto righteousness. 
 
60 Ai^snrance of Salvation. 
 
 which the sinner has failed to attain because of' 
 weakness, but struggles to attain. Tlie first thing is 
 to set himself to strive to attain the righteousness of 
 the Law by his own efforts. This was the case 
 with the Apostle. He longed to do what he could 
 not, and he constantly did what he would not ; and, 
 as it was with the Apostle, so it is with every 
 convicted sinner on earth. We were constantly 
 longing after righteousness. We could not help 
 looking on the beautiful, })ure, and holy law of Grod, 
 and we longed to keep it, and tried again and again, 
 until we were tripped down again and again, and died 
 in utter despair, never being able to attain it for 
 ourselves and of ourselves. So you see the Law begets 
 first a knowledge of sin ; secondly, it begets guilt and 
 condemnation on account of sin ; and, thirdly, desire 
 after righteousness and effort to attain \^. 
 
 Thus far I think we must all be agreed. Wherein 
 does the Law fail ? It does all this for me. It brings 
 me right up, as it were, my schoolmaster lashing me 
 right u]) to the cross, opening my eyes, creating intense 
 desire after holiness and efforts for it, and then it just 
 fails me. Where ? At the vital point. It cannot give 
 me poiver. That is where the Law fails It cannot give 
 me power to fulfil itself. I am strengthless through 
 the weakness of the flesh and the sinfulness of my 
 nature to keep it, and so I straggle and wrestle for 
 power to keep it, but I have not power. " What (he 
 Law could not do, in that it was weak, God sent his 
 Son to do," and I maintain HK DOES IT, and that is 
 the one vital point where the ISon transcends the Law. 
 
 Oh ! but there is a Gospel nowadays, a Law-Gosj)eI. 
 A great deal of the Gospel of these days never gets any 
 
Ai^surance of Salvation. 67 
 
 farther than the T.avv, and some people tell me that it 
 is never intended to do so. and then I ask, Wherein 
 does (Jhrist Jesns advantage me ? What am I better 
 for snch a (rospel, if my (iospel cannot deliver me from 
 the power of sin ? If through the Gospel I cannot get 
 deliverance from this " I-would-if-I-could religion," 
 this "Oh !-wretched-man-that-I-am religion," wherein 
 am I benefited by it ? Wherein does your Gospel 
 do more for me than the Law ? The Law convinced 
 me of sin, and set me desiring and longing after 
 righteousness ; but wherein is the superiority of Jesus 
 Christ, if He cannot lead me farther than that? 
 And I say, " Very well ; your faith is vain, and Christ 
 died in vain, and you are yet in your sins, if that is all 
 it can do." If that is all Jesus Christ can do. His coming 
 is vain, and I am yet in my sins, and am doomed to 
 hug this dead corj^se to the last, and go down to hell; 
 for death will never do for me, what the blood and 
 sacritice of Jesus Christ cannot do for me. If Christ 
 cannot supersede the Law, then I am lost, and lost for 
 ever. Wherein then does this " Oh !-wretched-man 
 Gospel" supersede the Law ? Will anybody point it out 
 to me ? 
 
 Oh ! but the real Gospel does. The Gospel that 
 represents Jesus Christ, not as a system of truth to be 
 received into the mind, as I should receive a system 
 of philosophy, or astronomy, but it represents Him as 
 
 a F^F^AL, LIVING, MIGHTY Saviour, ABLI-: TO SAVE MK IIOIU. 
 
 I said to a lady once, who was seeking this deliver- 
 ance, and wdio was struggling and wrestling, as I 
 kneeled by her side, — ' Wait a minute. Suppose 
 Jesus Christ were here in His flesh, as He once was. 
 Suppose He were to come to your side now, and put 
 
68 Assurance of Sahrition. 
 
 His hand iipnn you and say, 'lliisli! I know vonr 
 desiiv ; I seo your lioai't ; I know what you aro 
 longing after. Vou ai-(^ longing to be delivered from 
 everything that grieves Me, u]).')n which My pure eyes 
 cannot look with allowance. You are wanting to be 
 brought into full conformity to ]\Iy will, and that is 
 what I have come to do now. I have come to live 
 with you. I am taking up my abode under this roof, 
 and 1 will never leave your side. I will be with you 
 by day, and I will be with you b}^ night. I will sit at 
 the dinner-table and tea-table with you, and walk out 
 with you, and go to bed with you, and rise up with 
 you. Don't be troubled. I will never leave you and 
 never forsake you.' Do you think if He were to come 
 and say that, you would be able to trust Him? ' 
 
 'Oh! yes.' 
 
 ' You would not be afraid ? ' 
 
 'Oh! no.' 
 
 ' N"ow, what would it be that would save you ? 
 Would it be the bodily i)resence of Jesus, whicth they 
 laid in the sepulchre, and which was as dead and 
 helpless as any other clay when the s})irit was gone out 
 of ii ? NO. It would be His s})iritual ])i-esence, 
 would it not? and His s[)iritual eyes seeing you, and 
 His spiritual tongue speaking to you? ' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 'Well, then, this is just the ])resence that He has 
 promised to be witli everyone of His peo])le, and now 
 He is here and able to do this, and will aJ)ide with you 
 ami enable you to abide in Him, if you will just trust 
 Him; now, just trust Him.* And the Lord, by His 
 blessed Spirit, did take and reveal this truth unto her. 
 
Ast^arauce of Salvation. 69 
 
 and just then and there she did leap into the arms of 
 her Saviour find realise that He did save her. 
 
 Oh! friends, some people do not think we make 
 enough of Christ. We make all of Christ, only it is a 
 living Christ instead of a dead one. It is Christ in lis, 
 as Avell as for us. We believe in Christ for us, and we 
 should not have been here at all, but for Christ for us 
 up there for ever and ever, and nobody will hasten to 
 throw the crown at His feet readier than 1 shall ; but 
 we believe in order to do it we must have Him in us, 
 and if He is not in us, then it is sounding brass and 
 tinkling cymbal to call upon Him for us. He must be 
 in us. Christ in us as well as for us, and those whom 
 He is not in He will not be for. If He dwell not " in 
 you," ye are "reprobates." But Christ in us, — an ever- 
 loving, ever-present, Almighty Saviour — is just able to 
 do what the angels said He should do, that for which 
 He was called Jesus, viz. : — to save His people from 
 their sin. 
 
 Then how does He this ? Wherein does He 
 supersede the Law ? Wherein does Christ do for me 
 and wherein is He made to me, what the Law could 
 not do or be to me ? We have seen what the I-aw 
 could do and how far it could go. We have seen that 
 it fails just at the vital point of power. Now, hoio 
 does Christ become this power to me ? How is He 
 made unto me — not for me, up in Heaven ; He is 
 there too ; but how is He made unto me down here — 
 wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption? 
 How does He deliver His people from their sins ? 
 How does He save us from the power of sin ? Now, 
 you who are longing to get free, try and listen to me, 
 and oh! may the HOLY GHOST TEACH US. 
 
70 Assurance of Salvation. 
 
 He does this, first, by giving 
 
 Assurance of Salvation. He saves and then He 
 makes us conscious of the fact, which the Law could 
 not do. All it could do was to set us strus-oflino! after 
 it. It could not give us assurance. Now, by assurance, 
 I mean the personal realisation of my acceptance in 
 Christ ; my acceptance by the Father ; my present 
 acceptance — I mean the inward assurance, which men 
 and women iind for themselves, or have revealed in 
 themselves, which they know as a matter of conscious- 
 ness. Not that which their minister tells them ; not 
 that which they learn from books ; not even that 
 which the Bible only tells them, for there are 
 thousands of people who read the Bible, who are not 
 saved, and who know they are not. You all know 
 there are thousands of people, who believe it in vain. 
 
 I was walking down the Anxious Koom at one of 
 Mr. Moody's meetings, when two ladies came and 
 said — 
 
 ' Will you please speak to us ? ' 
 
 I don't know why they came to me, except it was 
 my plain dress which made them think, I ought to 
 know, even if I did not, how to deal with souls. We 
 took three chairs and sat down. The youngest was a 
 lady about 30 or 33, and very intelligent, evidently 
 an educated person, and the elder was an old lady, 
 gorgeously attired. They sat down ; and as to the 
 younger one there was no mistake about her earnest- 
 ness. Mr. Moody had been preaching on " The Cities 
 of Refuge," and showing how the soul who desired to 
 be saved had nothing to tlo and nothing to suffer, but 
 only (t) run into the Cities of Kefuge and be saved — • 
 a beautiful sermon for convicted sinners — and this 
 
Assurance of SalrafioiL. 71 
 
 lady said to me, almost passionately, — 'How is it? 
 there must be something wrong somewhere; there 
 must be a mistake somewhere. I believe all that 
 ]\Ir. JNIoody has been saying, every word of it. I have 
 believed every word since I was a little girl; in fact, 
 I believe the wliole of the New Testament — all about 
 Jesus Christ, and I believe, moreover, that He died 
 for me, and tliat He makes intercession for me, and 
 yet I'm not saved a bit. I have no more power over 
 sin than other prople, and I know I am not saved. 
 Now, what can be the reason ? I am afraid it is want 
 of faith.' 
 
 That is the universal resort to fall back upon by all 
 souls in that condition. I said — ' Will you be honest 
 with me. It is of no use coming to a s])iritual doctor 
 any more than to a physical doctor if you are not 
 frank ; you would only mislead him. If }'0u really 
 want to be saved, be honest with me, and I will try, 
 by the help of the Spirit, to help you.' 
 
 ' I do indeed want to be saved,' she said, ' I often 
 go into my room, and weep, and struggle, and pniy 
 for hours. I try to believe. I think I have believed, 
 and I come out and T am no better.' 
 
 ' Oh,' I said to myself, ' alas ! here is the experience 
 of thousands.' ' Tell me, in these times when you say 
 you go into your room, and struggle, and pray, and 
 strive, and believe ; tell me, is there anything that 
 comes up before the eye of your soul as an obstacle 
 and difficulty that has to be put away or embraced ; 
 anything that comes up and that the Spirit of God 
 says 'you must sacrifice this, or cut off that, or do the 
 other ? ' Just tell me that.' 
 
 She was quiet for a moment and speechless. She 
 
72 Assuiv.iicc of Salcatioii. 
 
 waited ; then she (hew her hreath and said — ' Well, 
 yes, I am afraid there is.' 
 
 ' Ah ! ' I said, ' that is it ; it is not, want of faith, it 
 is want of obedienee. Now yoii may go on anotlier 
 ten years, going into your room, struggling and 
 striving, and until you tram})le tliat under your feet, 
 and say, ' Lord, I will follow Thee at all eosts,' you 
 will not be alile to believe. I don't want you to tell 
 nie what it is ; sufiticient that you know it, and that 
 the Lord knows it ; but, after an experience of dealing 
 with hundreds of souls just at this point, I tell you: 
 you must give up that idol or enibrace that cross, what- 
 ever it may be ; I believe that here is the cause of your 
 trouble.' 
 
 ' Then,' she said, ' I will make no secret of it. I 
 am the only member of an unconverted family that 
 has any desire after God. JMy husband is a worldly, 
 unconverted man, and I am in a worldly, unconverted, 
 circle, and always when I come to the Lord Jesus, it 
 comes up before me that I Vvill ii;ive to confess Him 
 and to live like a Christian, and I am not willing to do so.' 
 
 ' Then, my dear lady, it is the old story over again 
 of the Young Kuler. Now, you know, 1 should be 
 imtrue to your soul, if I were to go on plastering you 
 with untempered mortar. There you are ; make your 
 choice. You cannot be a Christian, and not confess 
 Christ. You cannot be a Christian, and not live like 
 one before your unconverted relatives ; and, therefore, 
 if you are not willing to take up the cross and follow 
 Him, you cannot become J{is disci[)le.' 
 
 Then I went down on my knees with her, and we 
 talked antl prayed, and, at last, she said, 
 
 'By the grace of God, 1 WILL confess Him.' 
 
Assurance of Sah-ation. 73 
 
 Bless the Lord ! and the light of salvation soon 
 gladdened her eye, for it shone through her face. 
 She found herself able to believe at once, and this is 
 just the condition of thousands of souls. 8he got 
 assurance then. .She got saved. Before, she had 
 being trying to believe she was saved, when she was 
 not — quite a different thing to getting saved and then 
 knowing it. People are told to believe this, that, and 
 the other. As a gentleman said, at whose house I 
 once stayed — 
 
 'I had a curious episode the other morning. I 
 have had a gentleman here of some note in the 
 evangelistic world for two or three days, and he came 
 in the other morning at breakfast time and said, ' I 
 am happy to tell you that both your gardeners are 
 converted.' I was very thankful to hear it; and 
 surprised to hear that the work had been so quickly 
 and thoroughly done. Well, I was walking in the 
 grounds, and saw one of the gardeners. ' John,' I 
 said, ' I am glad to hear the happy nev;s.' He didn't 
 seem to know what I meant. 
 
 ' ' What news, sir ? ' 
 
 ' ' Well,' I hear you have given your heart to God 
 this morning. You are converted, saved ? ' 
 
 ' ' Well,' John said, ' I could hardly say that, sir.' 
 
 "Then what has happened? Something has 
 happened in your experience — some change taken 
 })lace ? ' 
 
 ' ' Well,' he said, ' I don't hardly know that. The 
 gentleman brought a Bible to me and read two or 
 three verses, and asked me if I believed, and talked 
 very nicely to me, and asked me again if I believed ; 
 
 6 
 
74 Assurance of Salvation. 
 
 then I said I did, and then he said I was nil right ; 
 but I can't say I feel any different. ' ' 
 
 Now, I am afraid there has been sadly too much of 
 that. There is all the difference between believing 
 the letter of the Word and knowing that you are 
 saved. I say, that man was not saved — was he ? I 
 say, the lady who spoke to me in the Anxious Room, 
 was not saved — was she ? And I say there are, alas ! 
 thousands to-day in just that position. They are not 
 saved. They manifest it by their fruits. They 
 confess it. They write it to me in their letters on 
 the right hand and on the left. Members of churches 
 ten, fifteen, and twenty years, some of them Ministers 
 of the Grospel, and yet they tell me they are not 
 SAVED ! ! 
 
 Thus, you see it is something more than the belief 
 after all. It is something more than what my 
 minister tells me, something more than what books 
 tell me, and what the Bible tells me. It implies and 
 includes this, but something more than this. It is 
 believing in a living, personal, and almighty Saviour, 
 and believing in Ilim now, and that faith brings the 
 realisation. The other brings nothing. When people 
 believe thus, the Spirit comes into their hearts, 
 crying, " Abba, Father ! " To them there is no 
 condemnation. They have the witness of the Spirit 
 that they are in Christ Jesus. The S})irit of the Son 
 comes into their hearts, crying, "Abba, Father!" 
 and they know by demonstration, by inward conscious- 
 ness, that they have passed from death unto life. 
 You see there is all the difference between the means 
 of salvation and salvation itself. The means of 
 salvation is not salvation. The means only lirings 
 
Assurance of Salvation. 75 
 
 salvation. "Thy faith hath saved thee." "By faith 
 are ye saved," and when you are saved by faith then 
 conciousness attests the fact. Your own spirit attests 
 the fact, and God's Spirit attests the fact, and 
 you know it beyond controversy. You have assurance, 
 and this is the first indispensable condition of 
 power over sin, for while I remain unassured of my 
 salvation, oh ! what power the Devil has over me. 
 ' Oh,' he says, ' you're not saved at all. What is the 
 good of your standing out on this point, for you are 
 not saved at all. You may as well go all the way. 
 You are under the power of sin, and may as well 
 remain there. You have not got the witness of your 
 salvation, and, therefore, what is the use of standing 
 out here or there ? ' But when we have the witness 
 of the Spirit in our souls of our acceptance with God, 
 that He does now for Christ's sake pardon and receive 
 us, what power it brings ! This is what the old 
 Divines called assurance of faith, a conviction wrought 
 in the soul by the Holy Ghost that Jesus Christ has 
 given Himself for me, that God has accepted that 
 offering in view of my sin and transgression, and for 
 its sake, and its sake only, has justified me freely 
 from all things by which I could not be justified by 
 the Law of jNIoses, and that in Him God becomes my 
 Father, and now accepts me and looks upon me well 
 pleased — a conviction wrought in my soul by the 
 Holy Spirit; for, as the Apostle says, "No man can 
 call Jesus 'Lord' but by the Holy Ghost." There 
 must be the spiritual realisation of Him as Lord. 
 Why, anybody can call Him " Lord.'' Tens of 
 thousands of people call Him " Lord " nowadays, 
 whom nobody supposes to have the Spirit. What 
 
76 Assurance of Salvation. 
 
 did he mean ? He must have meant a confession of 
 Jesus out of a heart whieli has a revelation and 
 recognises its Lord ; such a confession as Thomas 
 made when the conviction of His Master's Deity shone 
 into his doubting soul : " Mi/ Lord and my God." 
 To this relationship only the Holy Ghost can testify. 
 Don't ever tell anybody he is saved. I never do. I 
 leave that for the Holy Ghost to do. I tell them how 
 to get saved. I try to help them to the way of faith. 
 I will bring them up as close as ever I can to the 
 blessed broken body of their Lord, and I will try to show 
 them how willing He is to receive them, and I know 
 that when really they do receive Him, the Spirit of 
 God will tell them quickly enough that they are saved. 
 He will not want my assistance to tell that. I have 
 proved it in hundreds of cases. Nobody knows the 
 soul, but God. Nobody can see the secret windings of 
 the depraved heart, but God. Nobody can tell when 
 a full surrender is made, but God. Nobody can tell 
 when the right hand is cut off, or the right eye plucked 
 out, but God. Nobody can tell when a soul is whole- 
 hearted, but God, and as soon as He sees it. He will 
 tell that soul that it is saved ; but, if God has not told 
 you, be up and stirring, and strive to make your calling 
 and election sure, for you are not saved yet, or you 
 would know it. What are you to believe unto ? Hope ? 
 Oh, dear no ! you don't believe unto hope. Effort ? 
 Oh, no ! you had that before in the Law. Salvation ? 
 Yes ! and if you "believe unto salvation" you will get 
 " saved," and if you are not saved, you have never 
 believed unto salvation. Instead of trying to make 
 yourself happy in this state of uncertainty and misery, 
 for Christ's sake, get up and get saved. It is a great 
 
Assurance of Salvation. 77 
 
 deal easier to get saved, than it is to make yourself 
 believe you are saved, when you are not. The one is 
 a philosophical impossibility ; the other is a glorious 
 possibility at any moment, when you get low enough 
 before God, and give up all, and take His Son as your 
 precious and almighty Saviour. God's Gospel is 
 beautifully adjusted to the laws of our mental constitu- 
 tion. He who wrote, framed, and conceived it, created 
 us, and He has made it like a key to fit the lock, and 
 knows just the conditions that are necessary, and He 
 has conformed His Gospel to those conditions. 
 
 My Friend, if you want to know you are saved, this 
 is the only response I can give, and the only way I 
 laiow, and I have talked to hundreds of souls of all 
 grades and conditions, to many Ministers of the 
 Gospel, deacons and leaders, in just this state. For 
 years my labours were exclusively carried on in 
 churches and chapels, where, naturally, church members 
 have come, and they have told me by hundreds with 
 their own lips that they have been members so many 
 years and were never saved. I am not, therefore, 
 speaking without experience in this matter. I tell you, 
 when you " believe " in a Scriptural sense, you will get 
 " saved " in a Scriptural sense. When you put out of 
 your head all these new-fangled notions about faith, 
 and cease to credit any faith that does not save the soul 
 and bring it into conscious union witli Jesus Christ, and 
 resolve to have such a faith as will do that for you, then 
 you will get salvation, I never in my life knew a soul 
 come to that resolve who did not get saved. I have 
 had people before me, who were worn almost to 
 skeletons and were driven almost mad, and the first 
 thing they have said has been, when I have asked the 
 
78 Ad.myance of Saltation. 
 
 reason, ' Oh I I have no faith. It is want of faith ! ' 
 This is the universal lament, and, when we have come 
 to close quarters, I have invariably found it has been 
 no such thing, but want of OBEDIENCE, which 
 spiritual teachers have not had the wisdom to discern, 
 as Christ did in the heart of the young Ruler, " one 
 thing thou lackest." He saw that young man's be- 
 setting sin to be covet ousness. I do not know that He 
 would have said the same to overy rich man, but in 
 the case of the young Ruler He saw that the love of 
 his possessions was so paramount, that unless he let 
 them go and made a clean sweep, he could not follow 
 Him and be a consistent disciple; and so He said, 
 " Sell all, and come, follow Me," and the young man 
 went away sorrowful ; and, mark you, Jesus Christ did 
 not call him back, and yet he looked after him and 
 loved him. His great, benevolent, heart panted after 
 him, and He desired to have him ; but He saw it would 
 be a greater evil to call him back and compromise the 
 conditions of salvation, than to let him be lost. And 
 ye(., methinks, if there was any case in which a 
 compromise could be made, it would have been in this. 
 He did not do, as many would have done in our day — 
 call him back and say, ' Here, young man, I think 1 
 have been a little too hard on you. You shall sell hall, 
 and keep the other half and come and follow me.' Oh, 
 no ! Everybody would be saved at that rate. There 
 would be no test of whole-hearted consecration to llini 
 then. If you can let people into heaven on terms like 
 these, they would be only too ready to close with then). 
 ]5ut whether ministers teach peo])le ihe trutli or not, 
 the Holy Ghost does; and He puis Ills linger on ila^ 
 sore spot, and says, 'If you want to follow luc, yon will 
 
Assurance cj Saluatlon. 79 
 
 have to renounce tins, and give up that, or embrace 
 the other,' and if the soul says, 'No, Lord. I would 
 follow, but suffer nie first to go and hug this idol'; then 
 Jesus Christ says, •• Very well, go ! ' That is the sort 
 of faith most people are resting in. 
 
 I see we shall not get any farther in this address 
 than assurance of salvation. Yoa are panting after it. 
 You are longing for it. You may have it. Grod wants 
 every one of His people to have it. Get saved, and you 
 will know it. Use your Heavenly Father's letter to 
 find your way up to Him. It is not the letter you are 
 to rest in : it is the God wlio wrote it. Use the letter 
 to get at the Spirit, for the letter will not save you — it 
 is the Spirit that saves you. Hug this volume to your 
 heart as the expression of your Father's will and the 
 record through which you are to believe on His Son, 
 but it is the Sou who is to save you. People talk 
 about exalting Christ. I think this is ]lis glory, that 
 He can save His people and make them know it, and 
 make them feel it, and carry them as He did Paul and 
 Silas through the prison and the stocks singing His 
 praises and make them unspeakably happy in His love. 
 Assurance of Salvation ! All want it when they come 
 to die. Why don't })eople get it while they live. Did 
 you ever know a professing Christian come to die, who 
 did not want it ? Did you ever know one dare to die 
 without it ? or, if you ever knew such, you know what 
 a miserable death it was. Then, I contend, that v.diat 
 is necessary to die with, is necessary to live with. 
 Why not get it while you live ? Assurance ! Assurance ! 
 And you cau have it just now. Hallelujah ! Amen. 
 
HOW CHRIST TRANSCENDS 
 THE EAW. 
 
HOW CHRIST TRANSCENDS THE LAW. 
 
 lIoJiAXs vii. 4. — " Wherefore, my hrethroi, ye also are hecome dead 
 to the law by the body of Christ ; that ye should be married 
 to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we 
 should briny foiih fruit u/ito God." 
 
 IiN answer to letters received since last Sabbath, I 
 would just say that the writers tell me that they have 
 been struggling for years for assurance; that they do 
 receive the testimony of God concerning His Son ; 
 that they do believe that Jesus Christ died for their 
 sins ; still they have no peace or joy. I want you to ^ 
 mark well that assurance of salvation is the testimony 
 of God's Spirit to a fact which has transpired, and if 
 that fact has not transpired, God's Spirit will never 
 testify to it. You may think you believe; but, oh, I 
 feel sure numbers of people are deluded here. They 
 think they believe because they receive into their 
 minds the written record that God has given of His 
 Son ; but they have not believed and rested on the 
 promise in such a way as to bring the witness of the i 
 Spirit. They have stopped short of tliat. They havey 
 been satisfied with the letter 
 
 Now, do not think, friends, that 1 underestimate 
 the letter. Perhaps few of you, if any, value this word 
 more than I do, but I have known very few of those A 
 wiio have rested merely in the letter (and I have ^-r- 
 known many do so), who, when I have come into close (^ 
 conversation with them, have not been miserably \ 
 dissatisfied, unassured, sin-con(|uered souls; and that ) 
 fact alone convinces me tliat there is something 
 wrong. Tiiat is not the glorious liberty of the children 
 
L 
 
 84 liuiv Clirist Transcends tJie Lair. 
 
 I of God. That is not knowing God in the scriptural 
 
 v sense. 
 r Take God's way, and tlien the witnessing Spirit will 
 ' come. Of course, people are not assured because they 
 have nothing to he assured of! They have no 
 ^" salvation, and, therefore, they cannot be assured of it. 
 Get salvation, and you will get assurance. Oh ! 
 friends. This is what you want. It is for you. 
 Ilere it is. There is no other religion recognised in 
 this Book. All the saints to whom Paul wrote, knew 
 they were saved. Here and there was an exception, 
 where they had fallen back and got into bondage, as 
 some of you have ; but, as a rule, he recognises the 
 fact that they all ivere sa.ved, and were rejoicing in the 
 assurance of it, and this is the normal condition of the 
 children of God. I do not say such a person may not 
 occasionally slip. He may occasionally. He may lose 
 his scroll, as Pilgrim did, but he cannot, will not rest 
 till he finds it again ! 
 
 Then you say, ' I nm not to believe, I suppose. ' 
 Oh, yes! you are. , Take the blessed record to your 
 heart, but do not rest in the letter. Do not rest in 
 the letter. Go on until you find the substance of 
 things hoped for — the substance. There is a substance 
 in spiritual things quite as much as there is in natural 
 things, and those who really and truly believe, know- 
 it. No one can testify when you do really and truly 
 believe but God's Spirit, for the things of a man 
 knoweth no man save the spirit of a man that is in 
 him, and just so with the things of God. He searcheth 
 (he hearts and minds, and knows when you are sincere 
 and real and true; and when you seek llim with all 
 your heart you will liiul Him, and He will come and 
 
V 
 
 How Christ Transcends the Lam. 85 
 
 testify to that fact — and, oh ! if you have not this 
 testimony suspect yourself. Do not throw discredit 
 upon God. Be^in over again and get assurance. 
 
 Oh ! what POWER assurance of salvation gives ! 
 w^hen the individual can say / knoiu ; — not merely / 
 believe, but / knoiihl St. John seems to have written 
 his First Epistle mainly to enable the believers to 
 know: and ten several times shows how we may 
 "know" we are saved. P'aith is the means to 
 assurance, but assurance is not faith, and faith is not 
 assurance. JAssurance is the result of faith, and when 
 you have tlie right sort of faith you will have 
 assurance. " He that believeth hath the witness in 
 r himself," and until you get assurance do not trust 
 yourself. Persevere until you get it. Grod will never 
 leave a sincere soul in the dark. You must come 
 dowm to the foot of the cross in the little children's 
 way — give up all for Christ, and make up your mind 
 that you will follow Him at all costs, and then cast 
 your guilty soul ui)on His broken, bleeding sacrifice, 
 and, as soon as you do this, God ivill send the answer 
 of His Spirit. | 
 
 But this "afternoon I want to go a little farther in 
 showing how Christ supersedes the Law. 
 
 We have noted in a former sermon that He does so, 
 Jlrst, by giving assurance. 
 
 Secondly, I want to show that He does so, by giving 
 POWER OVER SIN. Now we shall be safe here. 1 
 trust this will not be controverted ground. I believe 
 He can do a great deal more for His people than this, 
 but we will stop here this afternoon. By-and-bye we 
 may, perhaps, go farther. Christ gives His people 
 poiver over sin. Now, this is a necessity of our 
 
86 Hoir Glirht Transcends the Law. 
 
 position. We have, as we saw last Sunday, been all 
 slaves of sin. Sin is, indeed, the sting of death. 
 Now, how is it if there is no deliverance from this 
 dreadful plague and scourge of Grod's people — how is 
 it that the Holy Ghost sets every real child of God 
 struggling after it ? Whatever may be a man's theory 
 in his creed, you get him on his knees, and he will 
 begin to pray to God to save him from sin. Sin is 
 the abominable thing which he hates, and longs to be 
 delivered from ; and the universal experience of God's 
 people is that the Spirit urges them to seek to be 
 saved from sin. I have heard people argue powerfully 
 against the possibility of being delivered from sin, 
 and the next time I have heard them pray, they have 
 asked God for the very thing, and I have said, ' Thank 
 God, that is the Holy Ghost teaching him now ; he 
 cannot help praying for it, whether he believes in it 
 or not.' If I have been under the power of sin, so as 
 to become its complete slave, and Jesus Christ comes 
 and pardons me for the past, and delivers me from 
 the guilt and condemnation which came upon me in 
 consequence of the past, what do I want ? I want 
 some new power. I want something besides pardon. 
 I want poiver to stand, or I shall be down again the 
 next minute. 
 
 What God does for us through Jesus Christ outside 
 of us is one thing, and what He does in us by Jesus 
 Christ is another thing, but the two are simultaneous, 
 or one so immediately succeeds the other, that we 
 hardly discern the interval. Now, I say, I want power 
 to enable me to meet that temptation which is coming 
 on me to-morrow, as it came on me yesterday, and, if 
 Jesus Christ ])ardons me ever so, and leaves me under 
 
TTou^ Christ Transcends the Laiv. 87 
 
 the reigning power of my old appetites, what has he 
 done for nie ? I shall be down in the mud, and to- 
 morrow niglii I shall be as condemned as ever. I 
 want power. I want regenei'ation — as the Holy Spirit 
 has put it. 1 want the renewhig of the spirit of my 
 mind. I want to be created anew in Christ Jesus ; 
 " made a new creature." 
 
 Now, this is where Jesus Christ transcends the Law. 
 The Law could not renew the spirit of my mind. It 
 could only show me what a guilty rebel I was. It 
 could not put a better spirit in me. It could not 
 extract the venom, but only show it to me, and make 
 me writhe on account of it. But Jesus Christ comes 
 and does this for me — gives me power. How ? 
 
 Now, I hope those friends who think that I do not 
 sufficiently exalt the Saviour, will mark this. How 
 does He give it to me ? He unites me to Himself. I 
 am dead to the Law. He delivers me from the con- 
 demning power of the Law when He pardons me, and 
 then He does not leave me there, but He "marries " me 
 to Himself. He unites me " to another" husband, and 
 then I attain power to bring forth fruit unto God. 
 A beautiful — a wonderful tigure ! We may not pursue 
 it ; but, oh ! what a wonderful figure ! Alone under 
 the Law's power, my old husband, I could do nothing 
 but agonise, wrestle, and desire. There was no power 
 in me but wlien Jesus Christ comes and unites me to 
 Himself; then He gives me power to bring forth fruit 
 unto God. It is by the UNION OF jMY SOUL 
 WITH HLM. You say, ' Explain it ! ' I cannot. God 
 Himself cannot explain it. We cannot explain it, but 
 we knoiu it. As Jesus said to Nicodemus : — " The 
 wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the 
 
88 How Christ Transcends the Law. 
 
 sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometb, 
 and whither it goeth : so is every one that is born of 
 the Spirit." The mystery is too great to be ex})]ained, 
 but there is the beautiful illustration ; united to 
 Cbrist I have power to conquer, to subdue, to trample 
 under foot those things which heretofore have been 
 my master, and by virtue of Him I retain the power, 
 and no other way. Oh ! dear friends, what a delusion 
 there is on the subject of Christian knowledge. If 
 knowledge could save people, what a wonderful world 
 we should have to-day. 
 
 Knowledge is as powerless as ignorance. A man is 
 not a whit nearer Cfod, or more like Christ, because he 
 has his head crammed with this Word. In fact, some 
 I have known who have been best acquainted with the 
 Word, who have been the greatest slaves of sin ; and 
 even ministers of Jesus Christ have confessed to me 
 that they have been bond slaves of some besetting sin. 
 The power is not in knowledge — and God is raising uj) 
 thousands of witnesses to this fact, that it is not in 
 knowledge — it is in union with Ifim, and the little 
 child in intellect and intelligence, who has the real, 
 vital, union with Jesus, has more power than the most 
 cultivated theologian has without Christ. The things 
 of Grod can only be understood by those who have the 
 Spirit of (rod. Tiie world by wisdom knows not (lod 
 any more now, than it did in Paul's days. The things 
 of the S[)irit are only spiritually comprehended. 
 Hence this beautiful union cannot be explained ; I 
 only know it is spoken of all through the Bible, both 
 in the Old Testament and in the INew, as hwiving 
 God. After God has summed up the failures of His 
 people, He gives them a promise, and says, "I will 
 
How Christ Transcends the Laiv. 89 
 
 betroth thee unto me in righteousness for ever, and 
 thou shalt KNOW the Lord," as though that were the 
 end of the whole matter, really and truly to know Him. 
 When they come to that living union of soul with 
 Him, it brings the vital sap as it were into the branch 
 of the tree — another of his own beautiful illustrations. 
 " Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot 
 bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine ; no 
 more can ye, except ye abide in Me." You know 
 what the branch is when it is broken off. It is a 
 branch. It retains the form of a branch ; and for a 
 while, the beauty and the greenness of a branch, but 
 it is broken off. There is no power in it. Suppose it 
 could maintain that form. Alas ! human branches 
 often maintain their verdure in a certain beauty, as 
 when first lopped off. But it can never bear fruit. 
 Why ? Because the communication is cut between 
 itself and the vine, and there is no sap in its fibre. 
 Its life is cut off. Now, my friends, you can see why a 
 soul, who has never been truly united to Christ in this 
 living spiritual marriage, cannot bear fruit unto Grod. 
 You can be like a branch. You can get so much 
 scriptural knowledge, that you can look just like a real 
 Christian, Alas ! You can get many of the feelings 
 of a Christian, and of the sentiments, as well as a 
 great many of the aspirations and desires, of a 
 Christian. You can be so like a branch that nobody, 
 but Jesus Christ, may know you are not in that true 
 Vine, and yet you have never, as the Apostle says, 
 been grafted on to the olive tree. And, therefore, 
 you go on weeping, and struggling, and trying to 
 perform the function of a living branch, when all the 
 while you are a dead one. You go on trying to bring 
 
 7 
 
90 Ifo/n C/i.rit<f Traiisccit(l>^ fin' Law. 
 
 fortli fruit unto God when the one indispensable 
 condition of fruit fulness is wanting. You have got 
 every other condition. You may even be nailed up to 
 the wall close to the vine. You may be such a 
 professor that nobody may ever doubt you. You may 
 be so close to the vine that nobody can detect your 
 want of union, excepting the Gardener who comes and 
 closely inspects you, and yet you may not have one 
 fibre truly circulating the real spiritual sap. HENCE 
 YOU HAVE NO POWER, and down you go when the 
 temptation comes. Ah ! what weary years of strife 
 some professing Cliristians have — they would be 
 ashamed to tell ; death sometimes forces it from 
 their lips before they die — trying to })erform the 
 functions of living men when they have never been 
 spiritually made alive. All they have ever had has 
 been what Paul depicts as the struggle of a poor 
 convicted sinner unable to bring forth any fruit unto 
 God. 
 
 Now, you say, this union with Him — what is it ? 
 Well, I cannot explain it. You, who know what it is, 
 cannot explain it — so to know the Lord as to be 
 conscious of the living sap circulating through your 
 soul, anointing your eyes with eye-salve, giving you 
 eyes to see, a voice to speak, feet to run, and hands to 
 serve — making you in all respects a " new creature." 
 
 Now, my dear friends, those of you who have not 
 experienced this, never mind who comes to you and 
 brings a Bible, and says, ' Do you believe this and 
 that? if you do you are saved.' Say, 'jNliserable 
 comforters are ye all : I will never be content until I 
 know God' 
 
 1 made up my mind to this when 1 was 15 years of 
 
How Christ Transcends tlte Law. 01 
 
 age. I had had the strivings of God's Spirit all my 
 life, since I was about two years old. INIy dear 
 mother has often told me how she went upstairs to 
 find me crying, and when she questioned me, I said I 
 was crying, because I had sinned against God, Thank 
 the Lord, I do not say this boastingly. I have good 
 cause to be ashamed that I was so long before I fully 
 gave myself up ; but all through my childhood 1 was 
 graciously sheltered by a watchful mother from 
 outward sin, and, in fact, brought up as a Christian. 
 When I came to be between 15 and 16, when, I 
 believe, I was thoroughly converted, the great 
 temptation of Satan to me was this : ' You must not 
 expect such a change as you read of in books. You 
 have been half a Christian all your life. You always 
 feared God. You must content yourself with this.' 
 Oh ! how I was frightened ! It must have been the 
 Spirit of God that taught me. I was frightened at it. 
 I said, ' No, no, ' My heart is as bad as other people's 
 and if I have not sinned outwardly I have inwardly. 
 I cried to God to show me the evil of my heart, and 
 said, ' I will never rest till I am as thoroughly and 
 truly changed, and know it, as any thief, or any great 
 outward sinner.' I went on seeking God in this way 
 for six weeks, often till two o'clock in the morning, 
 wrestling, and I told the Lord I would never give up, 
 if I died in the search, until I found God, and I did 
 find Him, as every soul does, when it comes to him in 
 that way. I cried for nothing on earth or in heaven, 
 but that I might find Him, whom my soul panted 
 after, and I did find Him, and you can find Him. I 
 knew Him. I can't tell how, but I knew Him. I 
 knew He was well pleased with me. I knew that we held 
 
92 Hoiv Christ Transcends the Law. 
 
 sweet converse often to the small hours of the morning 
 together, and I know that I was as happy in His love, 
 and far more happy than I ever was in any human 
 love before or since. 
 
 Now, friends, you can all have this union. He is no 
 respecter of persons. He has bought it for us. He 
 saw our weakness. He contemplated our moral 
 inability. He need not have come if we could have 
 known God by the Law. If that old covenant had 
 been perfect, there would have been no room for a 
 second. It brought us not into the full realisation 
 and enjoyment of Grod, but the new covenant does. 
 It cleanses the conscience from dead works to serve 
 the living Grod, and God is henceforth revealed to His 
 people, and they walk with Him. " If a man love Me, 
 lie will keep My words ; and My Father will love him, 
 and We will come unto him and make Our abode 
 with him." And when a man has got the Father and 
 the Son, he is a match for Satan and all his forces. 
 Union with Christ ! 
 
 Oh ! do you think this is a mere allegory of the 
 Apostle's? It is a beautiful illustration. When He 
 delivers us from the condemning, reigning power of 
 the Law, we become married to Jesus Christ. Then 
 we get a power to produce, in our affections, and 
 hearts, and lives, and all about us, such things as Grod 
 delights in. 
 
 Now, mark, all through the New Testament, and, 
 indeed, the Bible, no truth is taught with greater 
 force and frequency than this, that without a vital 
 union of soul with Christ, all ceremonies, creeds, 
 l)eliefs, professions, church ordinances, are sounding 
 lirass and tinkling cymbals, and all who trust in them 
 
HoiD Christ Transcends the Law. 93 
 
 will be deceived. This is the very essence of the 
 Grospel. This is what TFe came for and (oh ! how my 
 heart bleeds to think and say it) all who do not 
 attain to this real vital union with Him, will be lost. 
 Everything else falls short of our need and the purpose 
 and end of the Gospel of Christ. He came on purpose 
 for us to have this union with Himself. Neither 
 circumcision, nor uncircumcision, nor anything else 
 availeth anything, but this faith, which worketh by 
 love, and brings the Spirit of Christ into our hearts. 
 Oh ! bear with me ; dear friends, have you got it ? 
 Have you got this vital union with Christ ? Are you 
 bringing forth fruit unto Grod ? If not, I beseech you 
 give up daubing yourselves with untempered mortar, 
 and trying to make yourselves believe you are right, 
 when you are all wrong. However much desire, 
 purpose, hope, aspiration, struggle, or whatever elsf» 
 you have, if you have not attained to this, you are not 
 saved yet, and you are not in the kingdom. 
 
 In conclusion, " bring forth fruit unto Cjod," or, as 
 the Apostle has it, " having your fruit unto holiness and 
 the end everlasting life" — and in another place, for 
 the " end of the commandment," the purpose of 
 the commandment, the ultimatum of the command- 
 ment, " is charity," love, " out of a pure heart," and 
 so in many other pas^sages ; but we just take these at 
 random. 
 
 The result ! What is the result ? " That we may 
 bring forth fruit unto God." Jesus Christ in this 
 union recognises the fact that we are still in the body; 
 still in the world ; and that we are open to the attacks 
 of Satan. He knows — has foreseen, and has provided 
 for, the temptations of the flesh, that is, the temptations 
 
94 Horn Christ Transceiirh the Law. 
 
 which come to us through our natural appetites, 
 and instincts, and desires, as they came to Him. 
 He was hungry after enduring the great temptation 
 in the wilderness. There was no sin in being hungry. 
 He was intensely hungry, for He had nerves, and a 
 brain, and a heart, as we have. He was a perfect 
 man, and he suffered all the consequences of that 
 lengthened strain upon His nervous system, and the 
 Devil took advantage of the existence of that intensely 
 excited condition of His body by tempting Him 
 unlawfully to gratify it. For he said, " Command 
 these stones that they be made bread." This was 
 unlawful under the circumstances, (we will not stop 
 now to enquire why — ) and, therefore, He said, " Get 
 thee behind me, .Satan." He would ratlier suffer the 
 hunger, than unlawfully gratify it, and, therefore. 
 He did not commit sin. It matters not (and this 
 will meet tlie case of some who have written to me) 
 how intensely excited any physical appetite may be 
 — that is not sin. The more you suffer through the 
 excitement of the jiliysical appetite, of whatever kind 
 it may be, the more Jesus Christ sympathises with 
 you, for He was tempted in all points, like as we are, 
 yet without sin; and if you endure temptation, He 
 will sympathise witli you, more than vvitli tlio man 
 wlio does not have to endui'e and resist. You do not 
 sin because of the appetite merely being excited. I 
 tliink Satan gets some sincere souls to liring them- 
 selves into condemnation, when (fod does not condemn 
 them. If you resist as He did ; — if you say, " Get 
 thee behind me, Satan," — you sin not. What was 
 Eve's sin? Unlawful self-gratilication. The Devil 
 might have tempted her until now, if she had lived 
 
Holo Christ Transcends the Law. 95 
 
 so long ; but if she had steadily resisted him, she 
 would not have brought sin into the world. 
 
 Under the Law you see that it is sin, and you 
 struggle against it, but you have no power to resist, 
 and down you go. United to Christ you see that it 
 is sin, and you have power to resist, and you resist it, 
 and the Devil runs away ; and that is the difference. 
 You are married to a new husband now, and lie is 
 more than a match for the old Devil. lie is a 
 conquered foe, while you abide in Christ. He can 
 torment, harass, and excite you, and stimulate your 
 natural appetites, but he cannot make you sin, while 
 you abide in Christ. " He that is begotten of Go I 
 keepeth himself and that Wicked One toucheth him 
 not." "Ye are strong and have overcome the Wicked 
 One." 
 
 Then, again, we are open to the temptations of the 
 world, but this is provided for. Jesus Christ knows 
 that we are susceptible to the liking of nice things like 
 other people, and great things, and ambitious schemes, 
 and the world's praises and censures. Grod's people 
 are only sadly too familiar with this, and the weak 
 part of their nature would respond to it, and they 
 would fall ; but now they are united to Christ, and He 
 opens their eyes to see that it is Satan and the world. 
 When the Devil takes them to tlie top of the pinnacle, 
 and shows them all the glory of the world, he tries to 
 make them think it would be very nice to have it; he 
 tempts them to think it hard that they should be 
 regarded as such paltry and mean people, because 
 they belong to Christ ; but when they are thoroughly 
 and truly united to Jesus, He gives them power to 
 s;iy as He did, " Get thee behind me, Satan," for it is 
 
9G How CJu'ist Transcends the Law. 
 
 written, " Thou shalt love tlie Lord thy Grod, and Him 
 ONLY shalt thou serve " — not Him and the world. Oh ! 
 thank God, if you have Cfot there. Praise the Lord, if 
 you understand that. 
 
 Then he comes not only through these avenues, but 
 he comes again v.ith direct, subtle, spiritual influence, 
 with his old insiiuiation, as he came to Eve, and says, 
 " Hath God said "' this, or that ? He tries to inject 
 doubts as to God's goodness and veracity into the 
 believer's soul, as he used to do under the Law, and 
 under the Law the convicted sinner's soul used to 
 swell with rebellion, and say, ' Yes, it is hard and 
 cruel.' 
 
 Now, Satan still comes and vomits these thoughts, 
 and tries to excite these ill-feelings and these 
 cliargings of God foolishly in the believer's soul, but 
 by virtue of his union with Christ, who came not to do 
 His own will, but His Father's, and who spoke only 
 the things that His Father ])ade Him, the believer 
 says, " Tliough He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." 
 "Shall not tlie Judge of all the earthdo right?" — and the 
 Devil is gone. And then when the Devil is foiled at 
 all these points, he tries higher ground, ' Keally you 
 ' are a wonderful Christian — you are. You have had 
 ' special grace, for surely \'ery few people can have 
 
 * resisted the amount of temptation that you have. 
 
 * Keally you must be one of God's specially favoured 
 ' ones. jVow cast yourself down. It is written, " He 
 
 * " shall give His angels charge concerning you." ' 
 Spiritual presumption next. When he is foiled through 
 the world, and the flesh, and the Devil, and then he 
 doffs his old robe and comes as an angel of light. 
 But the soul's Bridegroom is hard by, ;'.nd he says ' Be 
 
Ho2v Christ Transcends the Law. 97 
 
 not ignorant of Satan's devices. Behold I am thy 
 salvation. Trust and be not afraid.' And so the soul 
 refuses to cast itself into unnecessary troubles, and is 
 content to abide in, and walk with its Lord. That is 
 how He gives us the victory. He shows us Satan's 
 devices, and gives us power. I cannot tell you how. 
 We don't know how. We only know that He gives it to 
 us, and we only know that if one instant separated 
 from Him we fall and become as other men. We only 
 know that in these seasons when our faith has relaxed 
 its grasj), we have gone down in the mud and been 
 overcome as others. It is by faith we stand, and while, 
 like Peter, we keep our eye on Him, and hold Him 
 fast, the waves may roar, and the winds may howl, but 
 He holds us by virtue of this union, and we bring forth 
 fruit unto God. We have power over the Devil. He 
 said, " I will give you power over all the power of the 
 enemy." This is the deliverance of the saints. This 
 is the life of the saints. This is the fight of faith. 
 This is the joy of salvation. This is the sort of 
 
 RELIGION THAT DOES TO DIE WITH ! ! ! 
 
 People all over the land are astounded at our 
 poor, weak, illiterate. Salvation Army Soldiers. A 
 gentleman, in a meeting on Easter Monday, a leading 
 man of thought and experience in the holiness world, 
 who was there all day — when my daughter said, ' \Miy 
 don't you speak ? ' — said, ' ( )ne feels as if one can't 
 speak in these meetings.' ' Why ? ' These people 
 liave such unction from the Holy One that they are 
 wiser than their teachers. Another gentleman, of 
 considerable position, too, in the religious world, said, 
 ' I feel like getting down at their feet. I feel as if 
 they could teach me.' How is it that they have such 
 
98 Hoiv Christ Transcends the Law. 
 
 power — these babes in intellect and intelligence? All 
 over the land people say this to me. People who talk 
 and go ahead in other meetings, when they get into 
 our meetings, say, ' I can't. They are so far ahead of 
 me that, to tell you the truth, I have nothing to say.' 
 I say, the Lord have mercy upon you, and make haste 
 and come up after them. Only get down from your 
 high mightiness as low as these people, and you will 
 get it. It is not because they are poor and illiterate, 
 that they have power, but because they are babes in 
 spirit. Even as Christ said, " I tliank thee, oh ! Father, 
 that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and 
 prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." The 
 simple spirit, the teachable believing soul — oh ! how 
 nuich more it learns of God, in one hour's precious 
 communion, than Doctors of Divinity learn in weeks of 
 close study, who have not got it, because it is the 
 SPIKIT that teaches the things of G-od. Tliis is union 
 with Jesus that bringeth forth fruit unto God, and, oh ! 
 the wonderful things it enables us to bring forth. If 
 you would all follow me, as l;ir as I have gone this 
 afternoon, and make the resolution I made at 15 years 
 of age, not to be put off with theories, but that you 
 iviU KNOW THE liORi), that you will have this Divine 
 union, and that you luill never rest till you get it and 
 know you have it — if we could all get thus far by next 
 Sunday — wliat happiness there would be amongst you. 
 There vioidd be some Hallelujahs. jMany of you would 
 be surprised, how you would find your tongues. A 
 gentleman once said to me ' I never did shout in my 
 life, but upon my word I couldn't help it.' I said, 
 'Amen. It's time, then, yon began.' I hope it may 
 he the same with many of you. When the Lord comes 
 
Row Christ Transcends the Law. 90 
 
 to His Temple and fills it ^vith His glovy, yon won't 
 know what to do. You must find vent somewhere, or 
 you will be as the poor old negro said he was — " Keady 
 to bust his waistcoat." We feel so about temporal 
 things. People drop down dead with joy. People 
 shriek with grief. People's hearts stand still with 
 wonder at the news they have heard, perhaps from 
 some prodigal boy. I heard of a mother, not long ago, 
 whom some one injudiciously told of the sudden return 
 of her son, who dropped down dead, and never spoke. 
 And when the Master comes to His Temple, that 
 glorious blessed Holy Saviour, whom you profess so to 
 long after and to love, and wlio has been absent so 
 many years, and whom you have been seeking after 
 with strong crying and tears, when He comes, do you 
 think it will be too much to shout your song, or go on 
 your face, or do any extravagant thing ? Oh ! no, if 
 there is reality, you cannot help yourself. The mani- 
 festation will be according to your nature. One will 
 fjill down and weep in quietness, and the other will get 
 up and shout and jump. You cannot help it. I have 
 read of two martyrs one of whom rejoiced in the 
 realisation of (rod's presence, and the other was in 
 darkness, yet did not deny his Lord. He continued in 
 the way of obedience, and the other was encouraging 
 him to hope and believe that the Master would come ; 
 but He had not come, when they started from the 
 dungeon to the stake ; so they fixed upon a sign, 
 and the or e said to the other, " If He comes, you will 
 give me the sign on the road." The Master did come, 
 but the martyr could not confine himself to the sign. 
 He shouted, raising his arms to his fellow-martyr, "He's 
 come, He's come. He's come." He couldn't help it. 
 
100 IToiv Christ Transcends the Law. 
 
 When He comes you won't be ashamed who knows it. 
 When you really get a living Christ for your husband, 
 you will be prouder than the bride, you will have got a 
 husband worth being proud of, and you will love to 
 acknowledge and praise Him, and the day is coming 
 when you will crown Him before all the host of heaven. 
 The Lord help you to accept Him, and put away 
 everything that hinders His coming. Amen. 
 
THE FRUITS OF UNION 
 WITH CHRIST. 
 

THE FRUITS OF UNION WITH CHRIST. 
 
 Romans, viii. 1-4. — " That the ritjJifeousness of the low mu/ht be 
 fulfilled ill us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." 
 
 We dealt, on Sunday week, with " What the Law could 
 not do ; " and last Sabbath afternoon we dealt with 
 " What Jesus Christ could do," by uniting us with 
 Himself and giving us power. I want, this afternoon, 
 to direct your attention to the fruits of this union — 
 THE LAW FULFILLED IN U.S. What does it mean ? 
 
 First. — I want just to say two or three words about 
 Law in the abstract. There seems to me to be an 
 awful misconception of the Apostle's writings respecting 
 the Law, caused by " wresting " and misapplying what 
 he says on justification by faith. People should bear 
 in mind that much of this Epistle, and some others, 
 was written on purpose to meet the extreme legal 
 notions of the Jews, who had no other idea of righteous- 
 ness than that of their own efforts to keep the Law 
 (Romans x. 3), and that, therefore, the Apostle was 
 bound, as any other writer would be in such cir- 
 cumstances, to put the extreme view-, on the other 
 side. -^lanyj.uot considering this, separate these 
 .passages from their explanatory connections, and from 
 all- the rest of the Word of Grod, and preach, now a- 
 days, that we have nothing to do with the Law. 
 -Hence, there has come to be a spirit of Autinomianism 
 abroad in the laud, compared with which the Anti- 
 -iiomianism of bygone ages was harndess. ts^ed- helpings 
 lacy-l - shall never ^ease to lift up my voice against it. 
 
41^ 0^tyKli 4 k*-- 
 
 104 Tlie Fruits of TTnion with Christ. 
 
 Now lAease, first note that there is,, in this writing, 
 talking, and singing about the Lai«. a great deal of 
 mental fog and confusion. People should be very 
 careful, when they come to such matters as these, to 
 be clear in their own minds, as to what the Apostle is 
 writing about; but I find frequently in such writings 
 and songs a total misapprehension as to the meaning 
 of the Apostle, and- a total confounding of the Moral 
 with the Ceremonial Law. Now, always mind, when 
 you read anything about the Law, to examine and 
 find out which Law 'is meant, whether it is the great 
 jMoral Law, which never has been, and never can be, 
 abrogated, or the Ceremonial Law, whiS^in Christ, 
 confessedly was done away. Mind which, because yom- 
 salvation may depend upon that point. If you make 
 a mistake there, you may be lost through it; therefore, 
 1/ /v ^^ very careful. Now, I say that people confound 
 i-\j. // ^ tbioiao, and, consequently, there is a perfect hotch- 
 potch of theology in this day, which I defy anybody 
 to understand. People do not know what they are 
 to believe, or what they are not to believe. As a 
 gentleman said, not long ago, ' it is confusion 
 confounded. 1 go to one meeting and hear this, and 
 then I go to another meeting and hear that, and, very 
 often, in the very same meeting, the speakers will get 
 up and flatly contradict each other ! ' ' Exactly ' I 
 said, ' but you have got the Eible. Why don't you 
 study tliat for yourself? Why not use your own 
 common sense — why not let your«d^MiiB(B speafc?-^ 
 ' But,' said he, ' why do not our ministers do it ? ' 
 'Because,' said I, 'many of them do not know it 
 themselves. Let'y©**r e o a aaaiowoa speak, and-€repl will 
 not let you go wrong ' It is an honest heart people 
 
\ ^_ ^,^^ i'-mi'^s ofl'Unioii ivlth Christ. 105 
 
 AvUnt, and then they will get the light. People sing 
 about the Law, talk about the Law, and glory in being 
 free from the Law, in a lawless, Antinomian spirit, 
 as far from anything Paul ever wrote or meant, as hell 
 is from heaven !^ Oh, it is an awfully bad sign, when 
 people are out of love with the injar of God ! David 
 made his boast in the"idaif of his God, he meditated 
 on it by day and by night, and its precepts were 
 his delight ; he loved it with all his soul, and so did 
 David's Son, and He is too much in love with His 
 Father's a t iw i 'r and Will, to hold fellowship with 
 anybody who does not love it. As He said to the 
 Jews, "He that is of God, heareth God's ivords ; \ 
 ye, therefore, hear them not, because ye are not of 
 God ; " and, again, of His disciples, " For I have given 
 unto them the words which Thou gavest me." So, 
 ,,mind, if you do not love the words, the expression of 
 ^. the tvill of God, you do not love God, and if you do 
 ,. not love the Father, neither do you love the Son. 
 This is the very accusation which He brought against 
 the Jews, that they had made void His Father's Law. 
 Let us mind, then, the distinction always made between 
 the great Moral and the Ceremonial Law. 
 
 In the second place : I want you to note, that when 
 you have ascertained that the Apostle is speaking of 
 the Moral Law — and he appears to speak disparagingly 
 of it — he is always referring to its inability to justify a 
 sinner, or to produce spiritual life. This, he says, it 
 could not do ; but he never speaks disparagingly of it 
 as the guide and standard of spiritual life, after life is 
 given. No ! he goes back to it as the onl}- standard, 
 and so did Jesus Christ. They continually refer to the 
 Law as the highest expression of the holiness and 
 
106 ^'Ae i'V^n'f.s- 0/ Vnkm with Christ. 
 
 righteousness of God, and as the standard by which ^re- 
 
 are to set our souls and eonseien©^. What othes- 
 
 standard have we but the Law ? How am I to judge y 
 
 ) ^* (J^$ of my thoughts, words, and actions but by the Law ? 
 
 5 , ^' ' Wh^re has Jesus Christ given me any other gauge ? 
 
 And if people would but read on, and let the Apostle 
 
 ' ^"^Z ' ^/ explain himself, they would understand him better, 
 
 /^ J./ and not get into such tanglements and mazes! Paul 
 
 • 1 is most careful to guard himself against the Antinomian 
 
 conclusions which he saw might be drawn from isolated 
 
 parts of his writings. He says, " Do we, then, make 
 
 void the Law through faith ? nay, we establish the 
 
 Law." And, again, " Wherefore the Law is holy, and 
 
 the commandment holy, just, and good ;" and, again, 
 
 when he says, that " To them that are without Law He 
 
 '^ became as without Law ; " he guards himself by a 
 
 parenthesis, "Being not without Law to God, but 
 
 under the Law to Christ." That is under the great 
 
 universal Law of love, which fulfils all other law ; for 
 
 " Love is the fulfilling of the Law." Love is the very 
 
 spirit and essence of the Law. The Law is to me the 
 
 / highest expression of what I ought to be, in my 
 
 '" • /^ relations to my Creator and in my relations to my 
 
 •^ !• ij fellow-creatures. Now, can what ought to be ever 
 
 r~- be abrogated ? Does it stand to sense ? Can the 
 
 fjLO/Vy^ lightness of things ever be altered ? Can God ever 
 
 f^yjji" I make two and two five, and can God make evil 
 
 A/^ _- " good and good evil ? He can make an evil person 
 
 good, by saving him from the evil and making him 
 
 good ; but God cannot make evil itself good, and good 
 
 evil, and He never professes to do it. 
 
 Oil, this confounding of things! how it does ruin 
 and befog poor souls ; How can it ever be less the 
 
The Fruits of Union until Ghrid. 107 
 
 duty of the creature to love and serve the Creator, 
 than it was when he first came pure and spotless from 
 flis hand ? How can it ever be less my duty to love 
 my neighbour as myself, than it was at the beginning,, 
 or how can I satisfy my conscience with less than loving 
 all men with a pure, benevolent love such as Grod bears 
 to them, in my measure and according to my capacity ? 
 The same standard remains, and the difference 
 between God's scheme of salvation and the scheme of 
 
 ' f) 'I /t^^salvation so widely preached now, is that man's scheme ' 
 
 ^ '%J[ proposes to get me into heaven without fulfilling this ^ 
 v- Law, while God's scheme proposes to give me power to ^ 
 ^FULFIL IT. Alas! I am afraid many will not find 
 out which is the right one, man's or God's till they get 
 to the Judgment Seat and find it out too late ! 
 
 ir/ U'/A -^^'^^j I ^^J' ^^^^^ there is not a word, rightly under- pf^l 
 ^' y stood ajad interpreted by correlative Scriptures, in the <2^j2-< 
 
 /-^~Y whole New Testament that disparages or ignores or '',^<- 
 ? gets aside the Law of God — not a word ! Do you ^/J\ 
 
 \LLhi<^ think the Apostle was as un philosophical as many ^-^ 
 now-a-days ? Did he not know what he wrote ? Is 
 he not as clear as a bell ? And now he comes to the 
 climax of his argument, the great end and purpose 
 towards which he has been advancing in his preceding 
 reasonings : " That the righteousness of the Law 
 might be fulfilled in us." As though he had said, 
 " This great and glorious end which was lost in Adam 
 shall be re-found and restored." So the old serpent 
 shall be circumvented at last, and God's people shall 
 be able to fulfil this beautiful ideal of rectitude and 
 righteousness which God has planned for man — Jesus 
 Christ shall destroy the work of the devil, restore 
 man, and enable him to walk in the light, even as He 
 
108 Tlie Fruits of Union with Christ. 
 
 is in the light. What the Law tried to do by a 
 restraining poiuer from luithout, the Gospel does by 
 cm inspiring power from within. That is the 
 difference. I could not keep it in the letter, but, 
 united to my heavenly Bridegroom, I can keep it in 
 the Spirit. He fills me with His love, and this 
 enables me to keep the Law, for love is the fulfilling 
 of the Law. "Love worketh no ill to his neighbour" 
 of any kind, and, again, the great Teacher said, " For 
 all the Law is fulfilled in one word — Thou shalt love 
 thy neighbour as thyself." If you do that, will you 
 injure your neighbour? See how the Spirit fulfills 
 thelfl^iftwl If you love your neighbour, will you 
 misrepresent him, cheat him, envy him anything 
 that he possesses or enjoys ? * No,' you say, ' of 
 course not; it is a contradiction.' Very well, then, 
 get this love in your soul and you will fulfil the ^sem.ft »\^ 
 Love is the fulfilling of the Law,'and he that loveth 
 in this sense dwelleth in God and God in him. Love 
 is the fulfilling of the Law, and the great glory of the 
 y. Gospel of Christ is that it brings us back to love His 
 fi^'-'-iMw, and, as the angels delight in it, and, as all holy 
 intelligences delight in it, so we delight in it, and 
 the righteousness of the Law — high, deep, and broad, 
 and long as it is — shall be fulfilled in us, "who walk 
 not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." ^^-t) fy^i ^u (3^^ 
 Then, I say, the Apostle evidently considered this { 
 
 fulfilment of the Law of Eighteousness in us as the 
 y highest end of our existence and of redemption ; for, 
 
 . he says, God sent His Son that the righteousness of 
 the Law may be fulfilled in us. INIark, oiot that its 
 claims shall be abated r Oh ! not one jot or tittle 
 fhall ever be abated They cannot. God could not 
 
 ^>xp^dvw f^^j^' 
 

 itu 
 
 abate them. Not that the righteousness of the Law 
 shall cease to have a claim upon'^j^eit. Oh! if He 
 could have saved us like that, Christ need not have 
 come at all. He could have saved us without a 
 Mediator. No, no! but that the righteousness of 
 the Law may be fulfilled in us as it was in^ Him. 
 That we should be brought to the full stature of men 
 and women in Christ Jesus, that we should have this 
 ppirit of our heavenly Bridegroom, by which we fujiil/ 
 j/i^ ^^ IWlv^^^*^ t^® servant, in his measure, shall be as 
 his Lord. 
 
 How ? As I explained, last Sunday, Jirst : We 
 shall be delivered from the reigning, condemning 
 power of the Law by virtue of an infinite, vicarious 
 sacrifice punished in our stead, and then, married to 
 Him, we shall serve m the newness of the-W)irit, and 
 not in the oldness of the letter(cv^s!/A*r| "y^ 
 
 I want to be eminently and intensely practical, for 
 the sake of the hungering and thirsting souls who are 
 asking me in their letters, 'Tell me how ? Help me ? " 
 
 Just let us look at this result (in fourth verse). 
 People talk about glorifying Christ ; but, it seems to 
 me, this does glorify Him. It seems to me here is 
 something to glory in, that He has circumvented 
 the old serpent and snatched the prey from his teeth> 
 and restored it, and enabled man, after all, to fulfil 
 the righteousness of Grod. Not only in what Christ 
 does for us ; but what He does IN lis, that God should 
 look on you and say, ' I am well pleased. There is 
 nothing there contrary to my will.' He will give you 
 the testimony, as He did Enoch, that your ways 
 please Him, that your thoughts please Him, that 
 your motives, and purposes and desires, and actions 
 
/ Tl 
 
 110 The Fruits of Union Kith Christ. 
 
 please Him. That is wliat the Gospel proposes to do. 
 We have seen how this spirit is produced. Now 
 let us look at the fruits, and first : — 
 
 This fruit is brought forth in THE APTECnONS! 
 
 Those people who are thus united to Christ fulfil the 
 in their affections. You know it is commonly 
 said that if you get hold of the affections of a man or a 
 woman you get hold of him or her. So you do. This 
 is the touchstone, and there is nothing in which I have 
 been so grieved and disappointed as in the manifest 
 want of quickness, livingness in the affections of God's 
 people for Him. Oh ! how I have seen this come out. 
 The coldness, the unsympathetic character of a great 
 many people's religion, and yet people whom one would 
 not like to unchristianise. I cannot explain it by any 
 better term than want of quickness. I have often been 
 struck with the difference when you touch individuals 
 on some point that affects them personally, and on those 
 which relate to the Kingdom of God, and have been 
 tempted to say with the Apostle, " All men seek their 
 own, and not the things that are Jesus Christ's." Alas ! 
 I fear it is A'ery largely so. You talk with a lady about 
 the salvation of her children's souls, the souls of her 
 neighbours, and her servants, or about the cause of God 
 in general, and she will talk " good " with you, so to 
 speak, and you will feel, ' yes, it is all very well," but it 
 doesn't seem to come up from the depths. It seems to 
 come from the throat, so to speak ; a sort of superficial, 
 surface kind of thing. But, if a child is dangerously 
 ill, how quick the mothers sympathies, how ready to 
 listen, how willing to do anything that you suggest to 
 help the child. If the business is in danger, if a man 
 has got into diflficulties and you can suggest any plan 
 
TliG Fruits of Union witli Christ. Ill 
 
 by which he may get out of them, how quickly his 
 attention is aroused. His interest doesn't flag, because 
 the subject touches him to the quick. It is his 
 concern, and just so in many other things. God forbid 
 I should judge all Christians. No, no, no ! — there are 
 blessed exceptions. There are many like David — rivers 
 of water do run down their eyes ; but I am speaking of 
 the mass of professors. I am afraid, that in their 
 affections there is a great deal of this lukewarm super- 
 ficiality. Why is it ? Because such people do not 
 abide in Christ, if ever they were in Him. They do 
 not keep the freshness and the quickness of the Spirit 
 of Jesus. They do not give themselves time to do it 
 for one thing, or care about it for another. We want 
 the constant indwelling of the Holy Spirit to quicken 
 our spiritual perceptions and keep us awake. It is 
 Satan's great desire to rock us to sleep, and there is no 
 quality in which the disciples have been more con- 
 spicuous than in going to sleep since the time when 
 the professed watchers went to sleep in the garden ; 
 but Jesus, in his mercy and love, is always wakening 
 them. But, oh ! this disposition to go to sleep, to lose 
 our quickness of perception. Now, friends, what must 
 you do ? You must do as you did at first. Cry and 
 believe till your soul is filled with the love of God. 
 
 I shall never forget reading, when only fourteen 
 years of age, a sentiment of a precious and valiant 
 soldier of the Lord Jesus, who is now in glory. 
 Speaking of putting a test, he said that people might 
 easily find out whether they loved God or themselves 
 best : — "Suppose you were in business in a little village, 
 and were doing pretty well, and everything was going 
 smoothly with you ; but there was nothing for you to 
 
112 The Fruits of Union idtli Christ. 
 
 do there for the Kingdom of God, no particular way in 
 which you could serve or glorify God ; and, suppose 
 there was another little village hard by, where there 
 was nothing whatever doing for the Kingdom, and you 
 felt it laid upon your soul to go there in order that you 
 might preach to unconverted people and raise a church, 
 and do something for souls. Ah ! but you have got a 
 nice business and you don't know whether you would 
 prosper or not in the other village. Now you may know 
 whether you are serving God or yourself first, by this 
 test. If you are seeking God, you will be ready to go 
 to that strange village and trust Him with the con- 
 sequences ; but, if you are serving yourself, you will 
 stop where you are. The Lord has helped me to apply 
 that many a time to many things besides business, and 
 to keep the Kingdom of God first, as I made up my 
 mind it should be first always — not in time merely, but 
 in degree — all the way through. If I love Him best, I 
 shall feel for Him deepest, and shall act for Him first. 
 If I love Him best, I shall feel for Him more deeply than 
 for my husband or children, near and precious as they are 
 and dearer than my own life a thousand times ; but 
 He will be dearer still and His interests ; and if, as 
 Jesus Christ says. His interests require me to sacrifice 
 these precious and beloved ones of my soul, then I 
 shall sacrifice them ; for the philosophical reason that 
 / love Hi'in better than I love them, and, therefore, I 
 shall lay them on His altar, to promote His glcry. If 
 I understand it, this is the fruit of the Spirit in the 
 affections — God first. I am afraid, in a great many 
 instances, it is husband first, wife first, children first, 
 and, I am afraid, in some cases, business first, and then 
 God may take what there is left and be thankful for 
 
The Fruits of Union ivith Christ. 113 
 
 that ! Now, if you are in this condition you need not 
 expect joy, peace, power. You will never get it if you 
 do. God will have to make you over again before you 
 can get it, and to alter the conditions of His salvation. 
 Oh ! but if you will lay it all on His altar, that is quite 
 another thing. 
 
 As I said to a lady, a little time ago, ' The Lord can 
 take your husband, if you refuse to give him to Him ; ' 
 and I am afraid Grod's people often compel Him to 
 take their darlings, because they make them idols ; 
 whereas, if they had laid them on His altar, they 
 might have had them back, as Abraham received back 
 Isaac. I said to a gentleman, ' Mind that Grod does not 
 burn down your barns, wreck your ships, and take 
 away your riches. Grod loves your soul enough to do 
 it, if you let these things prevent that whole-hearted 
 consecration which He requires.' We are in His 
 hands. " Whom He loveth He chasteneth," and if 
 you want to keep the precious things you have, oh ! 
 put them at His feet, and hold them in subordination 
 to Him. First, in your affections! He is a jealous 
 Grod, and jealousy in Grod is very much like jealousy 
 in us. It is the same characteristic of mind, only 
 purified from selfishness. He is a jealous God, and if 
 you will love these things better than Him, and if you 
 will not give Him your affections, then He will chastise 
 you, or — what is worse still— He will take His Holy 
 Spirit from you. 
 
 Fruit in your affections. Oh, if Christ had your 
 affections, how it would operate in everything ! The 
 wife would not be always grumbling because the 
 husband had to go out three or four evenings a week 
 on the Lord's errands — only let them be the Lord's 
 
114 Tlie Fruits of Union with Christ. 
 
 errands. Tlie husband would not grudge to give his 
 wife up to go to help to win souls, because it deprived 
 him of her society or a few comforts that she might 
 provide for him if she were near. The parents would 
 not grudge to restrain their children as Eli did. He 
 did not restrain them from that which they liked, and 
 you know the fruit it brought. Parents who love Grod 
 best will not allow their children to learn anything 
 which could not be pressed into the service of God. 
 They will not allow them to run with the giddy 
 multitude, to dance or do anything the devil might 
 inspire them to desire. " No ! " they will sa}', " my 
 children belong to Grod, and I am going to train them 
 for Grod and Grod only." Bless the Lord, He helped 
 me to make up my mind to do that before I became a 
 mother; and He has helped me to keep that promise 
 (though I have not been as faithful to it as I ought), 
 casting aside resolutely every temptation to the 
 contrary. And now He is giving me the fruit of my 
 self-denial in the souls and labours of my precious 
 children. One after another, as they grow up, they 
 take their natural place in the temple of the Lord, and 
 I believe they shall go out no more for ever. Oh, that 
 parents would do it ! Parents "might save their 
 children. I know what a mother's feelings are. I 
 know the temptation there is to see them shine in 
 competition with others, and to excel others. I know 
 it all; but I said, 'No; "Get thee behind me, Satan." 
 I will keep them for God;^ and He has enabled me to 
 keep them for Him. Bless His holy name ! 
 
 I loved Him better than I loved them, and, much as 
 I loved them (and those who know me know I do love 
 them), I would see them all in a row laid in their 
 
The Fruits of Union with Christ. 115 
 
 coffins before I would sacrifice His interests and lose 
 their souls. Do you love Him best ? Test yourself. 
 Do you love Him more than all else? Are you 
 holding everything in subordination to Him ? 
 
 P'urther, this fruit will come out in our members — 
 our bodies ; and oh ! there is a deep spiritual meaning 
 which, I trust, many of you know, in those words of 
 the Apostle, "The body is dead because of sin ; " but 
 '■'' He shall quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit, 
 (hat dwelleth in you." It is killed to the Devil, as 
 well as to sin, and all the uses of Satan ; but it is 
 quickened by the Spirit for the use of Grod, so that you 
 can render not only the calves of your lips, but your 
 hands, and eyes, and brain, and heart, and feet, and 
 the whole of your body to Him — your members 
 instruments of righteousness unto God. Hence, such 
 a, person will not feel his eyes are his own, to rove 
 at random wherever he lists. Such a person will not 
 feel his tongue is his own, to speak as he pleases. 
 He will " bridle it," as James says, when tempted to 
 speak unadvisedly. Such a person will not feel that 
 his hands are his own, to waste the time, in which he 
 ought to be doing something for God. vSuch a person 
 will not feel his feet his own, to carry him where he 
 likes, but where his Master would have him go — his 
 whole body consecrated, and, especially, his tongue — 
 consecrated to God, to testify for Him. He will feel 
 that he must feed his body, as my husband often says, 
 on the same principle that a man feeds his horse — 
 to keep it in the best working condition for God — 
 never eating anything that will bring the devils of 
 dyspepsia dancing round his soul. And, not only so, 
 with eating and drinking, but all his surroundings 
 
116 Tlie Fmits of Union ivith Christ. 
 
 and deportment must be in keeping. It is the Lord's 
 body ; and, if you love Him best, you will keep it for 
 Him : as the bride and the bridegroom keep themselves 
 for each other, so you will keep it for Him. 
 
 This fruit will also appear in our family relations. 
 We shall fulfil the Law to our neighbours. You see,, 
 Grod wants only what we have to give Him. He is. 
 not a hard master reaping where He has not sown,, 
 and the Great Teacher said, " This is the first 
 and great commandment," embracing all the rest,, 
 " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,, 
 and mind, and soul, and strength," and the second is, 
 like unto it, "And thy neighbour as thyself;" and 
 the man who does these is a perfect man, and fulfils 
 the law ; and when you have the fulness of love that 
 enables you to love God best and your neighbour as. 
 yourself — enables you to do for the souls and bodies. 
 of your fellows what you would like that they should, 
 do for you, if you changed places, then the Law is. 
 fulfilled in you. Such people cannot sit 365 days in 
 the year at the table with unconverted people, and!. 
 never try to get them saved. Such people cannot 
 abide in the same house with unbelievers, and not 
 make them miserable. Oh, no. The unconverted 
 say, ' It's too wretched to live here. I must get out: 
 of this crying and praying for me all day long.' As. 
 a servant once said, she couldn't stand it. She had 
 had praying enough at home, without coming there to* 
 have it. She did stand it for six weeks, and broke 
 down at the family altar and GOT saved, and became a 
 preacher afterwards. This spirit of love will make 
 every unconverted sinner within your reach so 
 miserable that they will have to be converted or rua 
 
The Fruits of Union with Christ. 117 
 
 away. How would you do if they were dying ? You 
 would run about in every direction to get a minister. 
 What a pity you did not feel like this twelve years ago. 
 Vou might have got the sinner converted then, and 
 he have been serving the Lord all the time ? But, now 
 he is dying, what a stir you make. What a purely 
 selfish religion that is. You want him saved, so that 
 he may get into Heaven, not that he might serve, 
 honour, and glorify God. You don't care at all about 
 that. He might live on in disobedience. Oh, be as 
 much concerned for the honour of God as you are for 
 your friend's salvation at the last, and then God will 
 know how to save them. 
 
 This fruit will also appear in your church relations. 
 It will bring forth fruit. As the Apostle says, 
 " Exhorting one another daily," not suffering sin in 
 your neighbour; reproving each other, and "confessing 
 your faults one to the other." Where is any of it 
 done ? I should like very much to attend such a 
 meeting, if you invite me, where Christians really and 
 honestly confess their faults one to the other, and 
 pray for one another, beseeching the Lord to heal 
 them in those particular points where they have 
 failed, telling one another of the deep things of God 
 and talkingly lovingly and freely to one another as 
 they used to do. It is part of the communion of 
 saints — "exhort one another daily." The devil is at 
 work daily. The world is plying for us daily. The 
 flesh is pleading daily. Everything evil goes on 
 daily. Why should not this exhorting one another, 
 confessing your faults to one another, and praying for 
 one another go on daily too ? 
 
118 The Fruits of Union with Chrid. 
 
 Is it a fact that we are each others keeper ? Is it 
 a fact that God will require for our influence over 
 other souls? I believe it. 
 
 Then in our relations to the world . But I 
 
 forestalled this in my address on " Aggressive Effort." 
 And now let us go down on our knees before God and 
 ask Him to work this love in us, and give us this 
 spirit, that we may thus FULFIL THIS LAW in all 
 its relations. 
 
WITNESSING FOR CHRIST. 
 
WITNESSING FOR CHRIST. 
 
 Acts i. 8 (latter clause). — '* Ye shall be ivitnesses unto me both in 
 Jerusalem, and in all Judcea, and in Samaria, and unto tie 
 uttermost }mrts of the earth." 
 
 Acts v. 32.—"Andi/e are His loitnesses of these things" 
 
 Again and again the same vocation and commission 
 is bestowed upon the apostles and disciples. To the 
 ends of the earth and to the end of time this com- 
 mission comes down to every one of the Lord's own, 
 for He says : — " Gro ye into all the world and preach 
 the Grospel to every creature ; and, lo, I am with you 
 always, even unto the end of the world." That 
 embraces us. And to every disciple who has preceded, 
 or is to follow us, is promised His Divine Presence in 
 this glorious work of testifying for Him. 
 
 God needs ivitnesses wi this world. 
 
 Why ? Because the whole world is in revolt against 
 Him. The world has gone away from God. The 
 world ignores Grod, denies and contradicts His 
 testimony, misunderstands His character, government, 
 and purposes, and is gone off into utter and universal 
 revolt and rebellion. Now if Grod is to keep any hold 
 upon man at all, and have any influence with him. He 
 must be represented down here. There was no other 
 way of doing it. If a province of this realm were in 
 anarchy and rebellion, unless there be some persons in 
 the province whose duty it is to represent the Queen 
 and her Grovernment, it will lapse altogether and be 
 
 9 
 
122 Witnessmg for Christ. 
 
 lost to the kingdom for ever. So God must be 
 represented, and, praise His name, He has had His 
 faithful witnesses from the beginning until now. As 
 the Apostle says — " He left not Himself without 
 witness." Down from the days of Enoch, who walked 
 with God, to this present hour, God has always had 
 His true and faithful witnesses. In the worst times 
 there have been some burning and shining lights. 
 (Sometimes few and far between, sometimes, like Noah, 
 one solitary man in a whole generation of men, 
 witnessing for God — but one, at least, there has been. 
 God has not left Himself without witness. 
 
 But Jesus Christ the Son — the well-beloved of the 
 Father — He was the great icitness. He came especially 
 to manifest, to testify of, and to reveal the Father to 
 men. This was His great work. He came not to 
 testify of Himself, but of His Father, not to speak 
 ^ His own words, but the words His Father gave Him 
 to speak. PTe came to reveal God to men. He was 
 /-^ the " Faithful and True Witness." And when He had 
 to leave the world and go back to His Father, then He 
 commissioned His disciples to take His place, and to 
 be God's witnesses on earth. And Oh ! friends, God's 
 real people are His only witnesses. He will not allow 
 angels — we do not know why — to witness for Him 
 here. He has called man to witness for Him, — His 
 people — " Ye shall be witnesses unto Me." 
 
 Jesus " witnessed a good confession," did he not ? 
 He witnessed nobly, consistently, bravely, of His 
 Father, and sealed His testimony with His blood. 
 The world treated Him as it has treated most of God's 
 faithful witnesses from the beginning ; it persecuted 
 Him ; it slew Him, as it would every faithful witness 
 
Witnessing for Christ. 123 
 
 f.r God- -if Grod allowed it — and would leave itself 
 without a single spiritual light : for the spirit that 
 worketh in the children of disobedience hath an 
 eternal and devilish hatred of every real, living, spiritual 
 child of God. It hates him as it hated the Son 
 Himself, and it is not the Devil's fault if he does not 
 extinguish and exterminate every such witness. It is 
 because God will not allow him, but holds us, keeps 
 us, saves us, in spite of him. 
 
 The Lord commissioned, then, His disciples to be 
 His witnesses, and He said — oh ! beautiful words, and 
 yet, how much they involve which few understand — 
 " As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so send I 
 them into the world." Even so : as Thou hast sent Me 
 to be Thy representative in the world, to spend and be 
 spent for Thee, and shed My blood for Thee, if 
 necessary, so send I them ; — and so He did send them, 
 and they had just the same fare as their Master, and 
 many of them just the same end. But they were 
 faithful witnesses, and they went forward and testified 
 everywhere, to the Jews and to the Gentiles, in the 
 Temple and in the Market Place, by the wayside and 
 in the highways and hedges — they went and testified 
 of this Saviour, and charged the wicked Jews with His 
 crucifixion, and God accompanied their testimony by 
 the Spirit, and thousands upon thousands were con- 
 verted — turned from their rebellion to God. 
 
 Now, the fact that witnessing is necessary shows that 
 there is controversy going on in the world as to the things 
 and claims of God — that there are two sides to this. 
 The great mass of mankind say, that God's truth is a 
 lie. They say it virtually, if they do not say it in 
 wordr, ; and many thousands of them, alas ! in words, 
 
1 24 Witnessing for Christ. 
 
 also. They deny, many of them, His very existence, 
 and say there is neither Heaven nor Hell — that Jesus 
 Christ was a mere man — that religion is a myth, and 
 that there is no such thing as the knowledge of for- 
 giveness of sins — that this witnessing is a grand 
 delusion of the imagination, and nothing further. 
 
 Now, Christ calls His people to go and be witnesses 
 to these facts. Witnesses, you know,, must deal with 
 facts, not theories — not what they merely think, or 
 suppose, or have heard, but what they know. Now 
 Grod wants His people to witness to facts — to something 
 that has been done, and is being done — something that 
 is and continues to be — fact. 
 
 And He wants us to be good witnesses, too. Oh ! 
 how much depends upon the character of a witness even 
 in an earthly court. If you can cast a reflection upon 
 the character or the veracity of a witness, you shake 
 his testimony, and take away its value. Oh ! how 
 important that Christ's witnesses should be good 
 witnesses — that is, that they should fairly and truly 
 represent Him and His truth — for, if they misrepresent 
 Him, somebody is sure to be damned through their 
 inconsistency— and, how awful to have the blood of 
 souls upon our skirts ! To misrepresent a man, or 
 woman, or child, is bad enough, but to misrepresent 
 God !— to show a caricature of the religion of Jesus 
 Christ ! — to live a wrong life and still profess to be a 
 Christian, saying to people, virtually, "Look at me : — 
 the way I live and act — what i am — this is the religion 
 of Jesus Christ." I say, such a man had far better have 
 a millstone hanged about liis nock and be drowned in 
 the depths of the sea. There, would, then, be an end 
 of his mischief; but a false witness on behalf of Jesus 
 
WitnessiiKj for Christ. 155 
 
 Christ is the most mischievous traitor on the face of the 
 earth. He does more harm than a thousand false 
 hostile witnesses against Him. Oh ! my friends, to be 
 good witnesses for Jesus Christ. The more a witness 
 is supposed to know of the truth to which he testifies, 
 the greater his responsibility. Oh ! for a minister to 
 be a bad witness, as some of the prophets of old were. 
 Look at the awful things Gfod says about them that 
 lead His people into the ditch, caring more about the 
 fleece than the sheep — awful ! For a mother to be a 
 bad witness in her family, and to take her little 
 children, clinging on to her skirts, right to the edge 
 of the pit ! For a master to be a bad witness — to 
 profess to be a Christian, and to be a bad witness before 
 his men ; for a Sunday school teacher to be a bad, 
 inconsistent, false witness of Jesus Christ in his class ; 
 for members of Christian churches to be bad witnesses 
 to one another, and to the world ; who can tell the 
 awful results ? Oh ! it is this inconsistent witnessing 
 that has lowered and lowered the standard of practical 
 Christianity till we have not got any standard left — till 
 the landmarks are so obliterated, that there are not any 
 to be seen. 
 
 Faithful witnesses ! He wants us to be faithful 
 witnesses. 
 
 I want to note one or hvo qualifications of a 
 faithful luitness, and, oh, may the Holy Spirit help 
 us. 
 
 The first qualification, then, of a faithful \Yitnebs, 
 is A personal knoioledge of the facts to ivhich he 
 tvitnesses. If a witness in a court of justice begins 
 to talk of what he thinks, feels, and believes, " Oh ! 
 hush, hush," says the judge, "we can't have that; we 
 
/" 
 
 126 Witnessing for Christ. 
 
 Wtant to know what you know — what you have seen, 
 heard, and felt of this case ; " and these are the sort 
 of witnesses Jesus Christ wants, who can get up and 
 say, "I know!" The sort of witness that St. Paul was, 
 who could look his judge in the face and say, " I 
 would that thou wert altogether such as I am, save 
 these bonds." What an impudent man he must 
 have been, if he was not a sanctified man. What a 
 supreme egotist ! Those are the sort of witnesses. 
 How Agrippa must have felt, just then. How the 
 tables were turned. " Oh ! I am turned into the 
 dock, and here is the prisoner taking his seat upon the 
 bench." That is the sort of witnessing we want. 
 " I would that thou wert altogether such as I am, except 
 these bonds." Could you stand up in the dock and 
 say that ? Could you stand up in your own house 
 and say it ? Could you stand up anywhere and say 
 it ? That is what the Lord Jesus Christ wants — 
 people who know, who experience, who realize, who 
 live the things they witness to. This is what the 
 world is dying for — people who can get up and say, 
 «I KNOW." The Lord wants people to tell the 
 world they are saved. Can you ? They will begin to 
 listen to you then. You will begin to have some 
 effect on them. They will begin to open their eyes 
 and ears, and wonder whether it will be possible for God to 
 save them. This is altogether different from a fine- 
 spun theory about religion — this telling them that 
 Grod has saved you. Not what we have learned in 
 books. The world is sick of that. I don't wonder at 
 intelligent men flying off from religion. I can make 
 great excuse when I think what many of them have 
 to listen to from Sunday to Sunday. As a gentleman 
 
Witnessing for Glirist. 127 
 
 said to me, ' It's enough to sicken anybody. AVe do 
 get something in The Tiines, but, upon my word, I 
 can't keep awake at church. It is not that I would 
 not, if I could, but I can't.' Poor fellow ! how I 
 pitied him. 
 
 No ! not what is got from books ; not a dry, fine- 
 spun theory, from mere hearsay. When a witness 
 begins with what he heard someone say, ' Oh, hush ! 
 says the judge, ' we don't want that, we want to 
 know what you have seen. Keep to the facts.' Jesus 
 Christ wants you to keep to the facts. Tell them, as 
 John says, what you have seen, and heard, and handled, 
 and realised of the truth of Grod. Personal knoiuledge ! 
 It is wonderful how simple salvation language is, 
 when you have learnt it by experience and are 
 prepared to speak plainly to the j^eople. 
 
 Then, a faithful witness must tell the truth, and the 
 vjhole truth. He must not hold back anything on 
 account of personal inconvenience, sutfering, loss, or 
 gain, but must tell the whole truth. Oh ! I tremble 
 to think what will be the fate of some who set 
 themselves up as teachers, and who have " kept back 
 part " of the truth because, to their apprehension, it 
 was not palatable or profitable to mankind. What 
 have I got to do with that ? I have to preach the 
 truth — the beautiful, whole, round, diamond, luminous 
 with Divine light, and not a base, muddy, paste 
 imitation, half truths manufactured into damning 
 errors, by which Satan is decoying thousands to Hell. 
 Give men the whole truth — both sides : the side that 
 relates to Grod ; and the side that relates to man ; 
 and be done with the nonser.se of making God 
 contradict Himself, for " God is light, and in Him is 
 
128 Witnessing for Christ . 
 
 no darkness at all." If there were contradictions, 
 there would be darkness. No ; the darkness is in our 
 own poor, blind, puny brains, and not in Grod or in His 
 Book. In His Book, rightly interpreted, there is no 
 contradiction whatsoever. The whole truth : the 
 convicting truth as well as the healing truth ; the 
 sword as well as the balm ; the running in of the 
 Divine knife as well as the pouring in of the Divine oil. 
 As Paul says, in the 26th chapter and 18th verse, "To 
 open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness 
 to light, and from the power of Satan unto Grod, that 
 they may receive forgiveness of sins." He says he 
 preached to the Jews and Gentiles that they should 
 repent. This is the Apostle Paul, the great expounder 
 of Justification by Faith, " That they should repent," 
 and what? — oh, you legal Paul, what? — "Do works 
 meet for repentance." Oh, Paul, I thought you were 
 saved from works altogether, and had done with the 
 Law. Oh ! you preach works, and doing works meet 
 for repentance. That is not Gospel, Paul ! He 
 significantly adds, " For this cause the Jews caught 
 me, and tried to kill me : " and for that cause the 
 Pharisees have been trying to kill God's true, whole- 
 truth witnesses ever since, for they don't like the 
 doctrine that cuts idols and sin in twain, and that says, 
 " Bring forth fruits meet for repentance." 
 
 The faithful witness must give the whole truth ; 
 and he must give it personally, too. A faithful witness 
 must give it himself. He can't witness by proxy. He 
 may pay one hundred and fifty evangelists to go and 
 witness in his place : that is all right. It is no more 
 than he ouglit to do— two hundred and fifty, if he has 
 money enough — because the Master claims all that he 
 
Witnessing for Christ. 129 
 
 has, little or much, every farthing of it, however many 
 preachers he may send and maintain. 
 
 Therefore, he can never do any more than he ought, 
 but that will not exonerate him from the personal 
 obligation. God will say to him: If I have put my 
 candle in you, it is that it may shine for somebody 
 else's benefit. If I have given you the bread of life, 
 it is for you to go and break it to the famishing 
 multitudes round about you. Ye are my witnesses. 
 You may pay the minister and the missionary, but 
 you must do it yourself, too, for how can one witness 
 make up for two ? True, Grod wants the minister to 
 witness, and it is no more than his duty if he witnesses 
 all day long as long as he lives. But that will never 
 make up for your lack of service. YOU must witness ; 
 and the7'e are some souls with whom you have onore 
 influence than any other living being — some souls 
 that you can better get at than any other person — 
 some souls that, if you do not save, will, probably, 
 never be saved at all. Ye are my witnesses, and, if ye 
 have the grace and love and light of God, it is at the 
 peril of your soul if you hide it. 
 
 Then, in the next place, faithful witnesses 7nust 
 speah Old, not mince the matter — not " mumble," as 
 they say in court. The judge makes the witness speak 
 up so that everybody may hear him. He must be 
 Jteard. " Speak out." And why should not the Lord's 
 witnesses speak out ? I wonder when we shall be 
 done with this sneaking, hole-and-corner, shame-faced 
 religion ! I wonder when Christian England will cease 
 to be ashamed of its God ! ! The only nation under 
 Heaven ashamed of its religion and its God is the one 
 
130 WifncssiiKj for Christ. 
 
 that has got the true Grod to worship and to love. 
 What an anomaly ; Speak out ! ! 
 
 David knew nothing about this mincing, half-and- 
 half, milk-and-water sort of religion. David rejoiced 
 to tell of his righteousness before the great congrega- 
 tion. He was always telling about His goodness, and 
 His Law, and singing about it all the day long, dancing 
 before the ark sometimes, and doing all manner of 
 demonstrative things to glorify his Grod. And that 
 was not enough, for when he had called upon all 
 human kind to praise Him, he called on the hills and 
 the trees to clap their hands and to dance for joy. 
 We want some of that sort of religion nowadays. 
 Talk of the nev/ dispensation, I wish we could get a bit 
 of the old one back. 
 
 The interests of truth demand this out-spokenness. 
 How is error to be met but by the bold proclamation 
 of the truth ? How are the emissaries of Satan 
 palming upon mankind his lies — always at it, night 
 and day — how are they to be silenced but by witnesses 
 faithfully crying in their ears, " This is a lie, and that 
 is a lie. This is the truth and this is the way; we 
 know, we see, we feel — walk ye in it." Turn ye, turn 
 ye, for why will ye die ? They want out-spoken 
 witnesses. There are plenty of fjilse witnesses now, as 
 there ever were, and what does Jesus Clu'ist want? 
 He wants His true witnesses to come out and face 
 them, and be a match for them — not to sneak away in 
 holes and corners, and be ashamed of their religion, 
 and talk about an " unobtrusive religion " — unobtrusive 
 nonsense. There is no such thing ! Come out before 
 the world. As Elijah said, " If the Lord be Grod, 
 follov/ Him," serve Him, speak for Him; "but if 
 
Witnessing fur Christ. 131 
 
 Baal " be Grod, " then follow him." Then away with 
 all this nonsense, your sanctuaries, and Bibles, and 
 profession — have done with it all and follow Baal. Be 
 one thing or the other. Methinks there wants an 
 Ehjah now to come and ring it through all England. 
 I would like to see any man get up and make a 
 straightforward recognition of, and ai)peal to, Cfod in 
 our Houses of Parliament, and I would like to see how 
 he would be greeted. 
 
 I was thinking, as I was passing the Eoyal Exchange 
 and saw on the top, "The earth is the Lord's and the 
 fulness thereof," how many believed it who walked 
 beneath its shadow. I wonder what anyone would be 
 thought of, were he practically to recognise the fact. 
 ' Oh ! ' they would say, ' he's not fit for his post — 
 you'll have to take him away ; he's a little affected in 
 his head.' Oh ! you know it is so ; but Grod is not 
 mocked, though men think He is. God sits in the 
 circle of Heaven, and though the people do rage, and 
 the heathen imagine a vain thing, and the kings of 
 the earth set themselves. He is laughing at them, and 
 by-and'bye will come their calamity. 
 
 We say the world is dying ; what for ? Sermons ? 
 Xo. Periodicals? No. Religious stories? Oh! dear 
 no. There is no chance of a want of them for many 
 a long year to come. Dying for disquisitions ? No. 
 For fine-spun theories ? No. For creeds and faiths ? 
 Oh ! you might have them by the dozen. What is it ' 
 dying for? — downright, straightforward, honest, loving, 
 earnest testimony about what God can do for souls.' 
 T/tat is what it wants. That is what those poor men 
 in the shops, those walking up and down Oxford 
 Street, in the theatres, in the dancing saloons, in the 
 
132 Witnessing for Christ. 
 
 concert rooms, everywhere, that is what men want : 
 somebody to come and take them lovingly by the 
 collar, and tell them that God is God, and that He 
 can save them. ' He has saved me, my brother, and 
 He can save you ! ' That is what the world wants. 
 One word like that is better than a sermon, and it will 
 do more for God and the salvation of the world. Oh, 
 yes, men are saying, in fact all over this land — 
 thousands, ' Here I am ; I am a poor slave of sin. I 
 know it.' They say it in their consciences, though 
 they do not say it to you. They say it often to us 
 when they are pushed into a corner by the sword of 
 the Spirit. ' I know I am wrong, sinful, wicked.' As 
 that dear John Allen, whose life I have been telling 
 about, said once when sitting swearing, surrounded by 
 his companions, and somebody said to him, ' Jock, if 
 you were to die, what would become of you ? ' 'I 
 should go to hell, straight ! ' He was an honest fellow. 
 He knew where he was going, and he said it. 
 
 1 said to a gentleman, ' Mr. So-and-so, what about 
 your soul ? ' He said, ' It's in a devilish state.' Poor 
 man ! He knew where he was going, and there are 
 thousands like him. Do you think they don't feel 
 their bondage? Have they not got a mind and a 
 conscience ? Have they not a better side, as you call 
 it, to their nature? Has not God flashed the light of 
 His Holy Spirit upon their dark souls, and have they 
 not struggled and striven ? Yes, but they say, ' There 
 is no health in us ; there is no help for us. We have 
 done making resolutions and trying to be better ; we 
 cannot. There is no hope in us.' And there they are 
 waiting for somebody to come and tell them there is 
 HELP IN GOD. They say, '1 see precious little 
 
Witnessing for Christ. 133 
 
 difference in you religious folks. I have never known 
 anybody that religion has seemed to do much for.' 
 And, when they are told to believe, they laugh at you, 
 and I don't wonder at it. The poor human conscience 
 is better instructed than many of its teachers. It 
 wants to be put right, and it says, Is there any hope ? 
 Can God save such as I am ? Has He saved anybody 
 like me from this thraldom, from this slavery, from this 
 misery, from this constantly going down in the mud ? 
 Did He ever save anybody like me ? And sometimes 
 he goes to chapel or church, and hopes the minister 
 will tell him, when lo, he begins a dissertation about 
 the resurrection, or the divinity of Christ, or something 
 the man has believed all his life, and so he is 
 disappointed again, and he says, ' This is of no use to 
 me.' Oh ! friends, I speak the things I know from 
 testimony of scores of souls. In fact, I could not 
 repeat it, it would make your faces burn to hear what 
 men of intelligence, thought, and standing have said 
 to me in many an ante-room where I have been 
 labouring. It is time there was a change. The world 
 is famishing for lack of real spiritual bread. It wants 
 something to eat, and you give it a stone ! but God is 
 raising a people ivfto knoiu vjhat it wants and hoiv 
 to give it, who know how to break the bread of life, 
 and testify what Grod has done for them, and what He 
 can do for other poor famishing souls ; who can go and 
 say : ' Here my friend, He can save such as you. I 
 was such a one once. I was a slave of sin, the slave 
 of drink, or a blasphemer, or a liar, or a thief, or 
 addicted to some bad secret habit worse than any of 
 these. I was such a slave, and He has saved me. He 
 ha'; broken iny fetters and set me free, and T am the 
 
134 Witnessing for Clirisf. 
 
 Lord's free-man. He has saved me and He can save 
 you,' Thai is what the world wants— TESTIMONY 
 WITNESSING. 
 
 Has He saved any of you ? Are you testifying to 
 your poor, famishing, sinking fellow-men ? Do you 
 ever look at them and think where they are going? 
 Do you pity them, love them, long after them in the 
 bowels of Jesus Christ ? Do you know anything of 
 that longing ? If so, how can you forbear testifying ? 
 " Ye are my witnesses of these things," everywhere, at 
 all times, amongst all people ! ! 
 
 It is in the nature of the case that a witness must 
 witness hefore otJier jjcople, before living hearers. That 
 is the place to witness, and before enemies, and when he 
 does not know which way the wind will blow, or how 
 the words of Grod will be received. He must be a true 
 witness, even if he has to seal his testimony with his 
 blood. 
 
 This was the kind of witnessing the martyrs did. 
 I often wonder whether there would be any martyrs 
 -now. Sometimes I think that the greatest boon to 
 the Church of Christ would be a time of persecution. 
 I believe it would. I believe it would drive us up to 
 God and each other. We should find out, then, 
 whether we were willing to forsake all to follow Him. 
 You know that if the martyrs had taken the standard 
 of religious life that exists now, they would never have 
 been martyrs. They would have looked after their 
 own skins, and left the Lord to look after the Gospel. 
 If they might have been allowed a little latitude, 
 and gone halfway, there would not have been any 
 martyrs, because they could nearly all have got off 
 with that; but they felt it necessary to be faithful 
 
Wltvr^^iiig for Christ. 135 
 
 right through, and to stand by the whole truth to the 
 very last jot and tittle, and when they could have got 
 off by saying three words on a paper, they refused to 
 do it, and went to the stake, and let the flames lick up 
 their blood. Those are the witnesses the Lord wants 
 — outside, everywhere, always at it. Always witnessing. 
 ' Always,' you say. Yes ; always. Why ? Because 
 men are ahuays dying and being damned! If the 
 Bible is true — everywhere — your friends and your 
 neighbours around you. You get a letter : ' Oh ! 
 Mr. So-and-so is dead — only ill three days — thirty- 
 six hours — twenty-four hours — gone ! ' Ah ! and the 
 echo in many a soul afterwards is, what would I give 
 for a chance to go and have one talk with him. But 
 he's gone — somewhere! Where is he gone? If he 
 were unwashed and unpardoned and unsaved — where 
 is he gone ? I got so wrought up once upon this point 
 that I thought I should have lost my reason. I could 
 not sleep at night with thinking of the state of those 
 who die unsaved. Dare I think about it ? Where is 
 HE GONE? Oh! it ivas this vieiv of the case that led 
 me to open my movih first in 'public for God. 
 
 I have promised some friends here to-night to give 
 this illustration from ray own experience, or else I 
 rarely refer to it. I had long had a controversy on 
 this question in my soul. In fact, from the time I 
 was converted, the Spirit of Grod had constantly been 
 urging me into paths of usefulness and labour, which 
 seemed to me impossible. Perhaps some of you would 
 hardly credit that I was one of the most timid and 
 bashful disciples the Lord Jesus ever saved. For ten 
 years of my Christian life my life was one daily battle 
 with the cross — not because I wilfully rejected, as 
 
136 Witnessing for Christ. 
 
 many do, for that I never dared to do. Oh, no ! I 
 used to make up my mind I would, and resolve and 
 intend, and then, when the hour came, I used to fail 
 for want of courage. I need not have failed. I now 
 see how foolish I was, and how wrong ; but, for some 
 four or five months before I commenced speaking, the 
 controversy had been signally roused in my soul which 
 God had awakened years before, but, which, through 
 mistaken notions, fear, and timidity, I had allowed 
 almost to die out. I was brought to very severe 
 heart-searchings at this time. I had not been realising 
 so much of the Divine presence. I had lost a great 
 deal of the power and happiness I once enjoyed. 
 During a season of sickness, one day it seemed as if 
 the Lord revealed it all to me by His Spirit. I had 
 no vision, but a revelation to my mind. He seemed 
 to take me back to the time when I was fifteen and 
 sixteen, when I first gave my heart to Him. He 
 seemed to show me, all the bitter way, how this one 
 thing had been the fly in the pot of ointment, the 
 bitter in the cup, and prevented me from realising 
 what I should otherwise have done. I felt how it had 
 -hindered the revelation of Himself to me, and hindered 
 me from growing in grace, and learning more of the 
 deep things of Grod. He showed it to me, and then I 
 remember prostrating myself upon my face before 
 Him, and I promised Him there in the sick room : 
 ' Lord, if Thou wilt return unto me, as in the days of 
 old, and re-visit me with those urgings of Thy Spirit 
 which I used t,o have, I will obey, if I die in the 
 attempt. I care not ; I will obey.' However, the 
 Lord did not re-visit me immediately. He let me 
 recover, and I went out again. About three months 
 
Witnessmg for Christ. 137 
 
 after that I went to the chapel of which my husband 
 was a minister, and he had an extraordinary service. 
 Even then he was ever trying something new to get 
 the outside people. They were having a meeting in 
 which ministers and friends in the town were taking 
 part, and all giving their testimony and speaking for 
 God. I was in the minister's pew, with my eldest 
 boy, then four years old, and there were some thousand 
 people present. I felt much more depressed than 
 usual in spirit, and not expecting anything particular, 
 but, as the testimonies went on, 1 felt the Spirit come 
 upon me. You alone who have felt it know what it 
 means. It cannot be described. I felt it to the 
 extremities of my fingers and toes. It seemed as if 
 a voice said to me, ' Now, if you were to go and testify, 
 you know I would bless it to your own soul as well as 
 to the souls of the people,' and I gasped again, and I 
 said, in my soul, ' Yes, Lord, I believe Thou would st, • 
 but I cannot do it.' I had forgotten my vow — it did 
 not occur to me at all. All in a moment, after I had 
 said that to the Lord I seemed to see the bedroom 
 where I had lain, and to see myself as though I had 
 been there prostrate before the Lord promising Him 
 that, and then the voice seemed to say to me, ' Is 
 this consistent with that promise ? ' and I almost 
 jumped up and said, ' Xo, Lord, it is the old thing 
 over again, but I cannot do it,' and I felt as though 
 I would sooner die than do it. And then the Devil 
 said, ' Besides, you are not prepared to speak. You 
 will look like a fool, and have nothing to say.' He 
 inailc a mistake. He overdid himself for once. It 
 was that word settled it. I said, ' Ah ! this is just 
 the point. I have never yet been willing to bo a 
 
 10 
 
138 Witnesmnrj for ChriHf. 
 
 'fool for Christ, now I will be one;' and without 
 stopping another moment, I rose up in the seat, and 
 walked up the chapel. JNIy dear husband was 
 just going to conclude. He thought something had 
 happened to me, and so did the people. We had been 
 there two years, and they knew my timid, bashful 
 nature. He stepped down to ask me ' AVhat is the 
 matter, my dear.' I said, ' I want to say a word,' He 
 was so taken by surprise, he could only say, ' jMy dear 
 wife wants to say a word,' and sat down. He had 
 been trying to persuade me to do it for ten 3'ears. 
 He and a lady in the church, only that very week, 
 had been trying to persuade me to go and address 
 a little cottage meeting, of some twenty working 
 people, but could not. I got up — Grod only knows 
 how — and if any mortal ever did hang on the arm 
 of Omnipotence, I did. I felt as if I were clinging 
 to some human arm — and yet it was a Divine arm — 
 to hold me. I just got up and told the people how 
 it came about. I confessed, as I think everybody 
 should, when they have been in the wrong and mis- 
 represented the religion of Jesus Christ. I told the 
 people, although I had been occupying all the 
 ordinary positions of a minister's wife, though I was 
 young then, I had been doing a great deal more than 
 many an elderly one does in the Church of Grod, in 
 the way of meeting believers, and visiting and 
 working behind the scenes, so that they had all been 
 regarding me as a very devoted woman, and I told 
 them so. I said ' I dare say many of you have been 
 looking npon me as a very devoted woman, and one 
 who has been living faithfully to (rod, but I have come 
 to know that I have been living in disobedience, and 
 
Wifncssmg for Christ. 139 
 
 to that extent I have brought darkness and leanness 
 into my soul, but I promised the Lord three or four 
 months ago, and I dare not disobey. I have come 
 to tell you this, and to promise the Lord that I will 
 be obedient to the Heavenly vision.' 
 
 But oh ! how little I saw then what it involved. 
 I never imagined the life of publicity it was going 
 to lead me into, and of trial also ; for I was never 
 allowed to have another quiet Sabbath, when I could 
 speak or stand up. All I took there was the present 
 step. I did not see in advance, but the Lord, as He 
 always does, when His people are honest with Him, 
 and obedient, opened the windows of Heaven, and 
 poured out such a blessing, that there was not room 
 to contain it. 
 
 There was more weeping, they said, in the chapel 
 that day, than ever there had been before. Many 
 dated a renewal in righteousness from that very 
 moment, and began a life of devotion and consecra- 
 tion to God. 
 
 Now, I might have ' talked good ' to them till now, 
 and that would never have happened. That honest 
 confession, coming out and testifying the truth, did 
 what twenty years talk would never have done. 
 
 The work went on. Whenever I spoke, the chapel 
 used to be crowded to its utmost capacity, and 
 numbers were converted. Not to me but to God be 
 all the glory. Shame to me that I did not begin 
 sooner. It was not I that did this, but the Holy 
 . Ghost, the Holy Spirit of God. 
 
 The Lord dealt with me in a very wonderful way. 
 Three months after this, my dear husband fell sick 
 for the first time, and he was obliged to go away into 
 
140 Witnessing for ChrisL 
 
 the country. A deputation waited on me, to ask me 
 to take his town appointments. I said I could not 
 think of such a thing. What could I do with that 
 great congregation ? They must not ask me — and 
 away they went. They came back again to know if 
 I would take the nights, they implored and importuned 
 me until I promised. So you see, God forced me to 
 begin to think and work, I was obliged, and I did it 
 with four little children, the eldest then four years 
 and three months old. It looked an inopportune 
 time, did it not, to begin to preach? It looked as 
 though the Lord must have made a mistake. However, 
 He gave me grace and strength, and enabled me to 
 do it ; and while I was nursing my baby, many a 
 time T was thinking of what I was going to say next 
 Sunday, and between times noted down with a pencil 
 the thoughts as they struck me. And then I would 
 appear sometimes, with an outline scratched in pencil, 
 trusting in the Lord to give me the power of His 
 Holy Spirit ; and I think I can say that from that day 
 — and it is about nineteen years and nine months since 
 — He has never allowed me to open my mouth without 
 giving me signs of His presence and blessing. Don't 
 you see that while the Devil kept me silent, he kept 
 me comparatively fruitless ; now I have ground to hope 
 and expect to meet hundreds in Glory, whom God has 
 made me instrumental in saving. The Lord dealt very 
 tenderly with me : giving me great encouragement, 
 but some things were dreadful to me at first. I would 
 not go into pulpits till the people demanded it. And 
 the first time I saw my name on a wall ! — I shall never 
 forget the sensation. Then my dear husband said, 
 ' When you gave yourself to the Lord, did you not give 
 
Witnessing for Christ. 141 
 
 Him your name?' Thus he used to go from one thing to 
 another, until now I have learned to glory in the Cross. 
 When a dear friend was talking, the other day, about 
 the tremendous undertaking it was to go to France 
 and begin there ; I said, ' My dear sir, I should not 
 feel any more discomposed to go to France, and open 
 there next Sunday, than I should to appear in St. 
 Andrew's Hall, simply for this reason, that I believe 
 Grod is the same in every place, and the same faith, and 
 the same truths and the same faithfulness will bring 
 Him to our help.' " Ye are my witnesses," saith the 
 Lord, " And, lo, I am with you ALWAYS ! " 
 
 Will you be encouraged, my sister ? Never mind 
 trembling. I trembled. Never mind your heart 
 beating. Mine beat nearly through. Never mind how 
 weak you are. I have gone many a time from the bed 
 to the pulpit, and back from the pulpit to bed. It is 
 not by human power, wisdom, might, or strength — it is 
 by my Spirit, saith the Lord. He loves to use the weak 
 things, that the excellency may be seen to be of Gfod. 
 If your neighbours were sick of some devastating plague, 
 and you could go and help them, would not you do it ? 
 Would you say, ' I am only a woman, and I cannot ? ' 
 ' Oh,' you would say, ' let me go, like Miss Nightingale 
 did to the sick and wounded soldiers. Let me go.' 
 And these are not the bodies, but the souls. They are 
 dying. They are going to an eternal death. Will you 
 not rise up ? Oh ! suppose all the Christians in this 
 hall to-night were to begin, from this hour, to be 
 faithful, and consistently testifying everywhere for 
 Jesus, what a commotion there would be ! How many, 
 think you, would be converted in a month's time ? 
 How would they begin flocking like doves to th^ 
 
142 Wiinessiiig for Christ. 
 
 windows? How would the ministers, some of them, 
 begin to wake up ? The people would go and beseech 
 them morning, noon, and night. God wants you to 
 witness right out everywhere, in the darkest courts and 
 alleys and in Oxford Street alike. Begin, and the Spirit 
 _^of God will fall upon you, and however they may try 
 ^to get rid of the Holy Ghost, they will not be able to 
 ^jgfdo it when God has got hold of them. We catch 
 thousands of people in this way who never intended to 
 be converted. Every day I live, the more I am con- 
 vinced that if God's people were to be in desperate 
 earnest, thousands would be won ; but they are not 
 likely to be won by the genteel fashion of putting the 
 truth before them — so common nowadays — because 
 nobody thinks they are in any danger ! If you believe 
 it, begin. The Apostle says you are to be good, valiant 
 soldiers of Jesus Christ : the old Christians were all 
 this ; they fought a good warfare, and they overcame 
 ,, the Devil by the " blood of the Lamb and the word of 
 y their testimony." Be soldiers for the Lord, and He will 
 give the victory, and you shall go and take prisoners. 
 Great big giants, black-hearted infidels, black-hearted 
 blasphemers, they shall go down before you like little 
 children, because the Lord of Hosts will put His Spirit 
 in you. "Ye are My witnesses." Witness! WITNESS!! 
 of Me everywhere and always. The Lord help you. 
 Amen, 
 
FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT 
 
FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT. 
 
 Acts i. 4. — " A7id heing assembled together with them, commcnuhd 
 them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for 
 the promise of the Father." 
 
 Ephesians v. 18.—" Be filled with the Spiiit." 
 
 I THOUGHT, perhaps, it would meet a difficulty of some 
 who are present this afternoon, to state, with respect 
 to last Sabbath's address, that this exhortation to be 
 filled with the Spirit is given broadly to all believers. 
 If my remarks, at that time, conveyed the idea to 
 anyone, that there were merely a privileged few who 
 are called to be thus filled with the Spirit — to be, as it 
 were, the leaders of the rest, and others were to abide, 
 and must abide, on a lower platform of Christian 
 experience, I certainly did not intend them to do so. 
 God forbid that I should insinuate anything of the 
 kind, because I do not believe it. I believe that this 
 injunction is given broadly to all believers everywhere, 
 and in all times, and it is as much the privilege of the 
 youngest and weakest believer here to be filled with 
 the Spirit, as it is of the most advanced, if the believer 
 will comply with the conditions, and conform to the 
 injunctions of the Saviour, on which He has promised 
 this gift. I do not find two standards of Christian 
 experience here at all. I do not believe God ever 
 intended there should be a lower life and a higher life, 
 and I am afraid that those people who rest in the 
 lower life will find themselves awfully mistaken at 
 
146 Filled uith the Spirit. 
 
 last. I believe that religion is all or nothing. God is 
 either first or He is nowhere with us, individually. 
 The very essence and core of religion is, " God first," 
 and allegiance and obedience to Him first. 
 
 If I cannot keep my father and mother and be 
 faithful to God, then I must forsake my father and 
 luother. If I cannot keep my husband or wife, and be 
 faithful to Him, then I must forsake husband or wife. 
 If I cannot keep my children and be faithful to Him, 
 then, Jesus Christ says, forsake them. And if I cannot 
 keep my houses and lands and be faithful to Him, 
 then I must forsake them. If I cannot keep my 
 business and be faithful to Him, then I must sacrifice 
 my business, and if I cannot keep my health and be 
 faithful to Him, then I must sacrifice it, and, last of 
 all, if I cannot keep my life and be fjiithful to Him, 
 then I must be prepared to lose it, and lay my neck 
 on the block, if need be. That is my religion, and I 
 do not know any other. I do not believe any other 
 will stand on the right hand of the throne ; and, if 
 that be so, why, all other sorts must stand on the left. 
 If this be not true, I am utterly and thoroughly 
 mistaken in the first principles of Christianity, and I 
 will come and sit down at anybody's feet who can 
 convince me that I am wrong. So, pray, do not 
 attach that idea to me that I think that any person 
 can sit down, providing he has light, or with oppor- 
 tunities of getting light, without embracing this 
 higher-life religion, and then get into Heaven in this 
 shame-faced, sneaking way. No, no ! — God will have 
 you, or He will not have you. He will know you, or 
 will say, " Depart from Me, I know you not." The 
 Lord help you every one. 
 
Filled with the Svirit. 147 
 
 This Pentecost is offered to all believers. It comes, 
 or it would come, in the experience of every believer, 
 jf he would have it. God wants you to have it. God 
 calls you to it. Jesus Christ has bought it for you, 
 and you may have it and live in its power as much as 
 these apostles did, if you will — every one of you. My 
 dear friends, you may have it, be filled with it, and no 
 one but God knows what He would do with you, aiid 
 what He would make of you if you were thus filled, for 
 the experience of Peter shows you how utterly different 
 a man is before he gets a Pentecostal baptism and 
 after he gets it. The man who could not stand the 
 questionings of a servant-maid before he got this 
 power, dared to be crucified after he got it. I may 
 just say, that here is the great cause of the decline of 
 so many who begin well. Oh ! there is no more 
 common lament on the lips of really spiritual teachers, 
 everywhere, than this, that so many begin well. 
 " Ye did run well." we might truly say of thousands in 
 this land to-day, " Ye did run well." They begin in 
 the Spirit, and then, as the Apostle says, " They go on 
 to be made perfect by the flesh." How is this ? 
 Because, you see, the Spirit puts before every soul 
 this walk of full consecration and whole-hearted 
 devotedness to God, and, instead of being obedient to 
 the heavenly vision, the soul shrinks back and says, 
 ' That is too much — that is too close — that is too great 
 .a sacrifice,' and they decline, and, instead of giving 
 up a profession and going back into the world (there 
 would be ten times more hope of them if they did 
 that) they cling on to the profession and kindle a fire 
 of their own, and walk in the sparks the}^ have 
 kindled. But He says He is against them, and " they 
 
148 Filled witlb the Spirit. 
 
 shall lie down in sorrow." Oh ! there is a deal of this. 
 People must have a Gfod and a religion. They will 
 have one, and when they shrink from the true one, 
 and will not follow the Divine counsel, then they 
 make one for themselves, and a great many of them 
 go to sleep and never wake again. They go out of 
 the world comfortably under the influence of narcotics, 
 and they never wake. They die deceived; or, if they 
 do awake, we know what sort of an awakening it is, 
 and what sort of deathbed theirs is. Our poor 
 Salvation Army people — these " fishermen," — these 
 young women — are sent for to pray with these people 
 when they get awakened. And oh ! what scenes are 
 witnessed. Oh ! see to it that you get awake and 
 • keep awake, and be willing to follow the Spirit's 
 teaching, in everything, at all costs and sacrifices. 
 
 I want you to note, first, how these people waited. 
 " Tarry at Jerusalem till ye be endued with power." 
 Mark, that is not truth merely. They had got truth 
 before. There is something besides truth needed. 
 Paul says his Oospel and his preaching were not 
 merely in word, but in potuer, and in the demonstration 
 of the Spirit. What would be the first thing that 
 would strike you that these disciples would be thinking 
 of, as they wended their way back from Olivet, having 
 taken leave of their now glorified Master ? Back 
 again to the upper room at Jerusalem. Imagine what 
 state of mind would be theirs. How would they wait 
 for the promise ? 
 
 Methinks the first feeling would be that of deep 
 selj-ahasertient. As they thought of the past ; now 
 that the full glory of His Divinity, and the Divinity 
 of His mission had burst upon them, and, as they 
 
Pilled with the Sjnrif. 149 
 
 thouglit of their three years' sojourn with ITim, and 
 of all their darkness and blindness of heart, and all 
 they had lost — all that they might have known — all 
 He would have revealed to them, if they would have 
 received it — as the thought of it all burst upon them 
 — just as, next day, when you find out who a person 
 was, or some particular circumstance respecting a 
 person that you did not fully understand at the time, 
 and, when the person is gone, and it all breaks upon 
 you, you say, ' What a fool I was,' and so methink.s 
 these apostles would say. Indeed, as He said, " Oh, 
 fools, and slow of heart to believe ! " They were cured 
 ■ — Peter certainly was — of self-sufficiency, of pride, and 
 all of them would go back again in deep self-abasement. 
 
 Can you not think you see them, as they assembled 
 in the upper room ? I should not be surprised at all 
 if Peter, with his impulsive nature — and it is a 
 glorious thing to have an impulsive nature when it is 
 impulsive for good — to be zealously affected always in 
 a good cause — threw himself on bis face before his risen 
 jNIaster in deepest humiliation and broken-heartedness 
 for his base ingratitude in having denied Him. And 
 how do you think Thomas and all of them would feel as 
 they remembered the scene in the Grarden, and how tliey 
 all in the hour of His agony, forsook Him and fled ? 
 How would they all feel ? Oh ! they would feel 
 indeed unholy, untrue, cowards, and would go down, 
 over and over again, on their faces, to wait in deep 
 self-abasement. 
 
 And now, friends, this is the very first and 
 indispensable condition of receiving the Holy Ghost. 
 You must first realize your past impurity, unholiness, 
 disobedience, and ingratitude. You must not be 
 
150 Fllkd with the SjjlrU. 
 
 afraid to know the worst of yourselves. You must 
 look back at the time when your hand has been with 
 Him on the table, and yet you have virtually betrayed 
 Him. You must look at your unfaithfulness and 
 disobedience, at your shrinking from the cross, at 
 your cleaving to the Avorld, and if you want to be 
 filled with the Spirit, you must be willing to know 
 the worst of yourself, and tell the Lord the worst of 
 yourself. You must say, ' Now, Lord, am I low 
 enough ? Now, Lord, am I down far enough in the 
 dust for Thee to come and lift me up ? I abhor 
 myself. I loathe myself in dust and ashes, and I 
 want Thee to come and fill me with Thy Spirit.' 
 You will have to be emptied of self. When people 
 are self-sufficient, God always leaves them alone to 
 prove their self-sufficiency. When people think they 
 can do for themselves. He lets them fall down and see 
 their weakness. We must realize om- utter helpless- 
 ness and weakness — we must be utterly lost in our 
 own sight. Some of you, I think, have come to that, 
 and others are not quite low enough. You must get 
 down lower, my brother. Grod's way to exaltation is 
 through the Valley of Humiliation. You must get 
 lower — lower. You can never get too low in your 
 own estimation in order to be filled with the Spirit 
 of God. They waited, secondly, in earnest apprecia- 
 tion of its importance. Ah ! they had enough to make 
 them do it. How do you think they felt when they 
 got into the upper room ? We are told that there 
 were about 120 of them. How do you think they 
 felt as they thought of the past, remembered the 
 ignominious crucifixion of their Lord, looked forward 
 to the future, and contemplated the work to which 
 
JFiUcd wltli the tS2)irlt. 151 
 
 He had called them ? And what was it ? It was not 
 to go and set up an idol of Jesus Christ alongside of 
 other idols in the temples of heathen gods, but it was 
 to go into the city of Jerusalem, where they had 
 just crucified Him between two thieves, and proclaim 
 Him as the long-expected Messiah of the Jews. It 
 was to begin to set up the Royal Spiritual Kingdom 
 in contradistinction to their temporal and earihly 
 kingdom, and then to go out from Jerusalem and 
 subjugate the world to His sway ! How would they 
 feel ? Poor Peter, and Thomas, and John, and Mary 
 and. the rest of the women (thanks to the Holy 
 Ghost, He has taken care to put it in that they 
 were there) — how would they feel? They would feel, 
 * We might as well stop and die here, as go out as 
 we 'are, until we do get the equipment of power. 
 We w^ant something more than we have got.' And 
 there they waited, and they said, ' Lord, pour it out 
 upon us ; we are ready. We are helpless, we are 
 jwwerlpss — we can do nothing. Thou knowest what 
 Thou hast called us to do, and Thou hast promised 
 this power to perform it. Now, here we are. It is 
 useless for us to begin until we get power.' They 
 appreciated its importance. God never gave this 
 ^gift to any human soul who had not come to the 
 ^-point that he would sell all he had to get it. Oh ! it - 
 ^ is the most precious gift He has to give in earth or in 
 Heaven — to be filled with the Spirit, filled with 
 Himself (as we said last Sunday), taken possession 
 of by God ; moved, inspired, energised, empowered 
 by God, by the great indwelling Spirit moving through 
 all our faculties, and energising our whole being for 
 Him. That is the greatest and most glorious gift He 
 
152 Filled with the Spirit. 
 
 ^ has. He is not likely to give it to people who do 
 / not highly appreciate it, and so highly that they are 
 willing to forego all other gifts for it — everything 
 else, creature love, creature comfort, ease, enjoyment, 
 and aggrandisement for this one thing. Have you 
 y come to that ? Are you telling the Lord so ? Are you 
 sincere ? If you are really sincere in what some of you 
 write me, then some of you have come to it ; — but, oh, 
 how people can deceive themselves. My heart has 
 been awfully pained during this last week with one or 
 two instances of this kind that have come to my notice. 
 I have been half the week, I think, with Klijah under 
 the juniper tree. I have cried, "Lord, who hath 
 believed our report ? " Who will thus take hold of Grod 
 for this special and full salvation ? Alas ! how few. 
 One draws back for one reason, and another for another. 
 One feels how far they come with us. You can hear 
 the tread of their feet, and you can hear how they 
 falter and draw back. None but those who travail for 
 souls can ever understand the agony of feeling that 
 souls are drawing back when you have brought them 
 on the road so flir. I have thought many a time of the 
 Saviour, when so many who had been hearing Him 
 forsook Him and lied. It was after Tfe had been trvincr 
 to lead them higher, even to real spiritual union with 
 Himself. 
 
 They were not willing to go all the way — to pay all 
 the price — to suffer all the consequences — but, if you 
 want this blessing, I know no other way. I liad to 
 come to this before I got it. The last idol of my soul 
 had to he renounced, and it was lianl work, as it always 
 is, because we love idols. Idols would not be idols if 
 they were not beloved. I'ut we liave to lay our real 
 
Filled With the l^pint. 153 
 
 Isaac, our beloved and only Isaac, upon the altar. It 
 is hard work, but it has to be done, because He is a 
 jealous Gfod, and will have no rivals. Do you so 
 appreciate this blessing that you are willing to give up 
 your Isaac ? If so, you may have it this afternoon. 
 He will fill you with His Spirit. 
 
 Third, and lastly, they waited in obedient faith. 
 How do we know ? Because they did as He bid thenfi 
 — that is the evidence. He said, " Go, tarry in the 
 city of Jerusalem." Peter might have said, when he 
 had seen his Lord off to Heaven, ' Well, what am I 
 going to do now ? I have been a long time running 
 after the Lord in Palestine, I must betake myself to 
 the fishing. I can wait as well on the sea beach as 
 in Jerusalem. I wonder why the Lord told me to go 
 to Jerusalem ? I think it was rather unreasonable. 
 He might have thought of my old father and mother 
 at home. I think I shall go back to my fishing-nets.' 
 No, no, they had been cured of their unbelief by the 
 last few days' experience. They had learned better 
 than to dictate to their Master, and they knew He 
 had a good purpose in sending them to Jerusalem, 
 and so they went there and did as He bade them — 
 straight. Back to that upper room they went. 
 Mary might have said, ' I have been running about 
 ministering to the Saviour a long time, I'm afraid 
 my friends will think I am neglecting home duties 
 and the claims of old friends. I really must go home 
 and see to matters a bit ; I may as well wait there 
 for the Holy Ghost as at Jerusalem.' No, Mary had 
 learned better. She went back to Jerusalem. We 
 have got their names. And they entered into the 
 
 11 
 
154 Filled, with the Sjurlt. 
 
 apper room, and shut the door, and waited — 
 obedient faith ! One of your poets said— 
 " Obedient faith that waits on Thee, 
 Thou never wilt reprove." 
 
 No, it is the disobedient faith that is sent empty 
 away. Oh ! people are crying out about their faith, 
 but it is their disobedient faith. If the Lord has told 
 you to wait in any particular place, or way, or 
 company, or time, and you disobey Him, you will 
 never get it, and you will have to come to those 
 conditions at last, even if it is on your dying bed ! 
 Obedient faith! While there is a spark of in- 
 subordination, or rebellion, or dictation, you will 
 never get it. Truly submissive and obedient souls 
 only enter this kingdom. Anywhere He tells you to 
 go, anything He tells you to sacrifice, or fly from, 
 you will have to do. This is one of His choice gifts 
 that He has reserved for His choice servants, those 
 who serve Him with all their hearts. — Obedient faitli ! 
 
 But you say, ' How do you know it was ijiith ? ' Oh, 
 because we know they did as He bade them. Now, 
 faith is inseparable from expectation. Where there is 
 real faith there is always expectation, and wlien I hear 
 people praying, as I often do, from their throats, for 
 the Holy Grhost, and see how they talk the minute 
 they get up from their knees, and know how they live 
 and whom they associate with, and how they spend 
 their time, I say, 'Yes, you may pray till your dying 
 day, but you will never get J|/fti^'If they expected 
 anything, they would wait for it : common sense tells 
 us that. 
 
 Those ])eople waited. How long? What a hue and 
 cry there is now about us Salvation Army people 
 
Filled u-lili the SjJiiit. 155 
 
 spending whoiC Mights in prayer. People — Christians, 
 grey-headed Chiistians, up and down the country — say 
 to me, ' I don't know how you get the time over. It 
 must be Mch ai. immensely long time. Do you really 
 mean to :ay that you spend all night in prayer ? ' I 
 say, ' Ye with just an interval for putting the truth 
 and sho\7ing the people how to apply it to their own 
 consciences.' liien they say, ' It must seem an 
 awfully long time.' I suppose it does, to them, to 
 spend one whole night in prayer ; but here, we are 
 told, they waited ten days, till the Day of Pentecost 
 was fully come. I have no doubt they went as far into 
 the night as they could keep their natural powers 
 awake. They waited. They did not set the Lord a 
 time. They were wiser. They did not say, ' Now we 
 will go and have a couple of days of it. That will be 
 a long time. We will just shut out all else and wait 
 on the Lord for a couple of days, and if He does not 
 come by that time, it will be outrageous to wait beyond 
 it. Whoever heard of a prayer-meeting two days and 
 two nights' long?' They did not set the Lord a time! 
 They went and waited till it came. 
 
 You say, " No ; I have not got it." No ; because 
 you did not wait until it came. You got hungry, or 
 you fell asleep, or hugged your idol. You did not wait 
 
 TILL IT CAME. 
 
 Suppose they had given up on the fifth day and 
 said, ' There must be some mistake. He knows we are 
 here, all ready, and the world is perishing for our 
 message. There must be some mistake. We had 
 better begin.' But no, they waited on, and on, and on, 
 until it came. Can you imagine what sort of prayers 
 went up from the upper room ? Do you think they 
 
156 FiJh'd irltli the fipn-'it. 
 
 were the lazy, lackadaisical, prayers that we hear every 
 now and then for the Holy Spirit ? 
 
 Oh ! how would Peter agonise and wrestle : how 
 would Thomas plead ; how would Mary weep, beseech, 
 and entreat, and how were they all of one heart and of 
 one accord. They wanted the one thing, and they 
 were there to get it. They cared for nothing else but 
 that. They cried for it as hungry children cry for 
 bread. They icanteclMif^ Did the Lord ever disappoint 
 anybody who waited like that ? Can anybody say so 
 here? Did you ever hear of such a case? Never. 
 He came. 
 
 Oh ! but there are some people, nowadays, who set 
 Grod times in everything. They think a good deal 
 more about their dinners than about Him. They 
 think a great deal more about intercourse with their 
 friends and doing the polite to them, than they do 
 about the precious waiting Holy Spirit of God. They 
 think a great deal more about their businesses. ' Oh! ' 
 they say, ' it is business, and business must be attended 
 to.' But what about the Holy Ghost and the King- 
 dom ? Must not the Kingdom of God be attended to ? 
 Must not your soul be saved, and must you not become 
 a temple of the indwelling Spirit of God ? Put a must 
 in there, if you please. Far more important is the 
 soul than the body. Friends, are these things so, or 
 am I only imagining them ? Are these great truths, 
 or are they fables ? These are the most common- 
 sense, simple exhibitions and illustrations of these 
 truths that could possibly be given. Was it not so ? 
 Did they not thus wait, and did not the Holy Ghost 
 come ? — and when He came He sat upon each of them. 
 ]-)lcss His name. 
 
Filled with the Spirit. 157 
 
 People have a wonderful habit of losing sight of the 
 little words of the Bible — the people who make a great 
 to-do about the Word in other ways, often say 'I 
 never saw that till you directed my attention to it.' 
 Suppose I were to say that this afternoon something 
 happened to each person, would you imagine I meant 
 the men, and not the women ? Of course you would 
 say, I meant everyone. And it filled them all — the 
 women as well as the men, and they began to speak 
 with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. 
 He came. 
 
 And, my friends, He comes yet. My bodily senses 
 have been quite cognisant of His coming sometimes. 
 "We only know that we feel something that so influences 
 our bodies that we cannot describe it. 
 
 In the North, when I was there, we had an all-night 
 of prayer, at which one thousand people, admitted by 
 ticket, waited all night on God. The meeting began 
 at ten, and went on until six in the morning, and 
 there were strong men, men in middle life, and old 
 men, lying on their faces on the floor. There were 
 doctors there, who examined them and tried to 
 account for it from physical causes, but they could 
 not. It ivas the power of God. The Holy Grhost does 
 come, and because, in coming thus into our souls, and 
 thus filling us, He sometimes prostrates our bodies, 
 people rebel, as they did on this occasion, and reject 
 the manifestation, and say, 'Excitement! fanaticism! ' 
 What right have you to say that the Holy Spirit 
 coming into a human soul can operate upon that soul 
 to the full extent without, to some degree, prostrating 
 the body ? We know how people fall under great 
 emotions of anger, grief^ and joy. Why ? Because 
 
1.58 Filled irlfh tJir Sp!nt. 
 
 the influence of the mind has so affected the body 
 that the body cannot bear it, and when the Holy 
 Spirit of God comes into a human soul and opens its 
 eyes, and quickens its perceptions, and enlarges its 
 capacity, and swells it with glory, is it an unlikely or 
 improbable thing that the body should sometimes be 
 prostrated under I[is power ? What did Paul say ? — ■ 
 *' I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus," 
 and I have been into " the third heaven and heard 
 unspeakable words which it is not lawful to utter." 
 Do you think Grod intended such experiences and 
 visions only for Paul and the Apostles ? Ah ! there 
 have been many since his day who have had such 
 experiences, and many more of Grod's people might 
 have them, if they would, but they are not willing to 
 be wrapped in His arms ; they are not willing to be 
 pressed to His bosom ; they are not willing to know 
 Him in the Scriptural sense; they are not willing to 
 be given up and consumed by His Spirit. Their heart 
 and flesh do not cry out after the living Grod, as 
 David's did. They are not panting after Him as the 
 hart after the water-brooks. They are not longing to 
 come and appear before Grod. If they were so longing 
 that they could not live without it, then God would 
 come and be revealed to them. Will you, then, wait 
 in obedient faith ? 
 
 Oh ! I liave the most awful realisation that you will 
 be eternally better or worse for these services, and so 
 I want you to come up higher, I don't want you to go 
 back, and get cold and indifferent to these things, 
 because here is the hope of the world, if there is any 
 hope for it, in people getting filled with the Spirit, 
 people getting so wok(> uj) to God and His glory, and 
 
FUlcd with ilic HpiriL 159 
 
 the interests of His kingdom, that they should be just 
 as anxious for souls as other people are for sovereigns. 
 Filled with the Spirit, having eyes to see spiritual 
 sights which others do not see, ears to hear the crying 
 of the famishing multitudes who are dying for lack of 
 knowledge ; hearts to feel so that they could go and 
 weep over them. Hands to break the bread of life ; 
 and, if need be, a zeal that will lead them to die for 
 them. This is what we want, and it only comes with 
 the fulness of the Spirit. 
 
 Are you willing, my brother ? are you willing, my 
 sister ? If so, stop with us this afternoon. Never 
 mind the dinner; never mind the tea. You have 
 taken care of the outer man long enough, now look 
 after the inner man. Never mind the children, 
 mother, just now, the Lord will take care of them. 
 Never mind anything, you who are athirst, but, 
 getting this blessed Holy Spirit of God, this full 
 baptism of it on your souls. The Lord help you. 
 Amen ! 
 
THE WORLD'S NEED. 
 
THE WORLD'S NEED. 
 
 Matthew xxi. 23. — " So7i, go work to-day in my vineyard.^' 
 
 Luke xiv. 23. — " A7id the lord said unto the servant, Go out i7ito 
 the hiyhirays and hedges and compel them to come in, that 
 my house may bellied,'' 
 
 We might have enumerated other texts, teaching 
 the same truths. There are plenty of them, but the 
 general tenor and bearing of the Word of Grod, 
 especially of the New Testament, is more significant 
 than even direct and isolated texts. It seems to me 
 that no one can disinterestedly and dispassionately 
 study the New Testament without arriving at the 
 conclusion that it is a fundamental principle, under- 
 lying the whole, that His light and grace is expansive ; 
 that is, God has, in no case, given His light. 
 His truth, and His grace to any individual soul, 
 without holding that soul responsible for communi- 
 cating that light and grace to others. Eeal Christianity 
 is, in its very nature and essence, aggressive. We 
 get this principle fully exhibited and illustrated in 
 the Parables of Jesus Christ. If you will study them, 
 you will find that He has not given us anything 
 to be used merely for ourselves, but that we hold 
 and possess every talent which He has committed to 
 us for the good of others, and for the salvation of 
 man. If I understand it, I say this is a fundamental 
 principle of the New Testament. 
 
 How wonderfully this principle was exhibited in 
 
164 The World's Need. 
 
 the lives of the Apostles and early Christians ! How 
 utterly careless they seemed to be of everything 
 compared with this — this was the first thing with 
 them everywhere ! How Paul, at the very threshold, 
 counted nothing else of any consequence, but willingly, 
 cheerfully gave up every other consideration to live 
 for this ; and how he speaks of other Apostles and 
 helpers in the Grospel who had been nigh unto death, 
 and laid down their necks for the work's sake ; and 
 we know how he travelled, worked, prayed, wept, 
 and suffered, bled and died, for this one end. And 
 so with the early Christians, who were scattered 
 through the persecutions, how they went everywhere 
 preaching the Word ; how earnest and zealous they 
 were, even after the Apostolic age, we learn from 
 ecclesiastical history — how they would push them- 
 selves in everywhere ; how they made converts, and 
 won real, self-denying, followers even in king's courts ; 
 how they would not be kept out, and could not be 
 put down, and could not be hindered or silenced. 
 " These Christians are everywhere," said one of their 
 bitterest persecutors. Yes, they were instant in 
 season and out of season ; they won men and women 
 on e\ery hand, to the vexation and annoyance of 
 those who hated them. Like their Master, they 
 could not be hid ; they could not be repressed ; so 
 aggressive, so constraining, was the spirit which 
 inspired and urged them on. 
 
 It becomes a greater puzzle every day to me, 
 coming in contact with individual souls, how people 
 read their Bibles ! They do not seem to understand 
 what they read. Well might a Philip or an angel 
 come to them and say, " Understandest thou what 
 
The ^Yorhrs Need. 165 
 
 thou readest ? " Oh ! friends, study your New 
 Testament on this question, and you will be alarmed 
 to find to what an awful extent you are your brother's 
 keeper — to what an awful and alarming extent God 
 holds you responsible for the salvation of those 
 around you. 
 
 I want to glance, first, at our call to tvorh for God ; 
 and, SECONDLY, at huo or three indispensable qualifica- 
 tions for successful labour. 
 
 And, first, as I have just said, we are called by 
 the Word not only in these direct passages, but by 
 the underlying 'principle running through it all, and 
 laying upon us the obligation to save men. In fact, 
 the world is cast upon us : we are the ordy people 
 who CAN save the unconverted. 
 
 Oh ! I wish I could get this thought thoroughly 
 into your minds. It has been, perhaps, one of the 
 most potent, with respect to any little service I have 
 rendered in the vineyard, — the thought, that Jesus 
 Christ has nobody else to represent Him here but us 
 Christians — His real people : nobody else to work for 
 Him. These poor people of the world, who are in 
 darkness and ignorance, have nobody else to show 
 them the way of mercy. If we do not go to them 
 with loving earnestness and determination to rescue 
 them from the grasp of the great enemy ; if we do 
 not, by the power of the Holy Ofhost, bind the strong 
 man and take his goods, who is to do it ? Grod has 
 devolved it upon us. I say this is an alarming and 
 awful consideration. 
 
 Secondly, we are called by the Spirit. The very 
 first as})iration, as I said the other night, of a newly- 
 born soul is after some other soul. The very first 
 
1G6 The WorhVs Need. 
 
 utterance, after the first burst of praise to God for 
 deliverance from the bondage of sin and death, is a 
 prayer gasped to the throne for some otlier soul still 
 in darkness. And is not this the legitimate fruit of 
 the Spirit? Is not this what we should expect? I 
 take any one here, who has been truly saved, to 
 record if the first gushings of his soul, after his own 
 deliverance, was not for somebody else — father, mother, 
 child, brother, sister, friend ? Oh ! yes, some of you 
 could not go to sleep until you had written to a 
 distant relative, and poured out your soul in anxious 
 longings for his salvation; — you could not take your 
 necessary food until you had spoken or written to 
 somebody in whose soul you were deeply interested. 
 The Spirit began at once to urge you to seek for 
 souls ; and so it is frequently the last cry of the Spirit 
 in the believer's soul before it leaves the body. You 
 have sat beside many a dying saint, and what has 
 been the last prayer? Has it been anything about 
 self, money, family, circumstances ? Oh ! those things 
 are now all left behind, and the last expressed anxiety 
 has been for some prodigal soul outside the kingdom 
 of God. When the light of eternity comes streaming 
 upon the soul, and its eyes get wide open to the value 
 of souls, it neither hears nor sees anything else ! 
 It goes out of time into eternity, praying as the 
 Kedeemer did, for the souls it is leaving behind. 
 This is the first and last utterance of the Spirit in the 
 believer's soul on earth; and oh! if Christians were 
 only true to the promptings of this blessed Spirit, it 
 would be the prevailing impulse, the first desire and 
 effort all the way through life. It is not God's fault 
 that it is not so. In personal dealing with souls there 
 
The WorlcVs Need 167 
 
 is no point comes out more frequently than this : 
 nothing which those who have reahy been converted 
 and have become backsliders in heart more frequently 
 confess and bemoan than their unfaithfulness to the 
 monitions of the Spirit with respect to other souls. 
 In fact, backsliding begins here in thousands of 
 instances. Satan gets people to yield to considera- 
 tions of ease, propriety, being out of season, being 
 injudicious, and so on; and they lose opportunities of 
 dealing with souls, and so the Spirit is grieved and 
 grieved. Oh ! what numbers of people have confessed 
 this to me. 
 
 A gentleman, in advanced life, said : * When I was 
 a young man, and in my nrst love, the zeal of the 
 Lord's house so consumed me that I used to neglect 
 my daily business, and could scarcely sleep at night ; 
 but, alas ! that was many years ago.' ' Was it not 
 better with you then than nowV I asked; and the 
 tears came welling up into his eyes. Oh, yes ! the 
 Lord says of him, " I remember thee, the kindness of 
 thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou 
 wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was 
 not sown ; Israel was holiness unto the Lord, and the 
 first-fruits of His increase." And, Alas ! there are 
 many such to-day. They have it all to do over again ; 
 they have to repent and do their first-works ; they 
 have to come back and get forgiven, and washed, and 
 saved, if they are to go into the kingdom on high, all 
 for want of systematically and resolutely obeying the 
 urgings of the Holy Spirit towards their fellow-men. 
 
 Now, you have, some of you, been hearing, the last 
 few Sundays, about grieving the Spirit, and about being 
 filled with the Spirit ; and some of you are puzzled as 
 
168 The WorliVs Need. 
 
 to how you ought to wait — whether you ought to go on 
 with your lawful avocations and wait. I say : My 
 friends, I could quite justify the position I took up last 
 Sunday, but I will not stop, for I do not care about 
 circumstantials ; but mind, iJiis is the great point — 
 you must so wait, wherever it may be — so plead, and 
 wrestle, and believe— SO THAT YOU GET IT. Tlien 
 I care not whether it be in Jerusalem, in the Upper 
 Eoom, or anywhere else — only^ get it. Don't let us 
 lose the substance in quibbling about the way. Wait 
 in that way congenial to your present circumstances ; 
 but, oh ! wait for it until you get it, for this is the life 
 of your souls, and the life of many souls, perchance, 
 besides yours. You want this spirit — the spirit that 
 yearns over the souls of your fellow-men ; to weep 
 over them as you look at them in their sin, and folly, 
 and misery ; the spirit that cannot be satisfied with 
 your own enjoyments or with feeling that yon are safe, 
 or even that your children are safe; but that yearns 
 over every living soul while there is one left unsaved, 
 and can never rest satisfied until it is brought into the 
 kingdom. 
 
 Such are the urgings of the Spirit ; and if people 
 would only be obedient to them, they would never lose 
 these urgings. Why, what an anomaly it is ! Does it 
 look reasonable, or like God's dealings, that people 
 should begin so strong, like the old man felt when 
 he was young, and, instead of waxing stronger, and 
 having this holy zeal and desire increased, get weaker 
 and weaker, and less and less ? Does it look like 
 God's way of doing things ? Oh, no! This eclipse is 
 through grieving and quenching the Spirit. 
 
 Now, my friend, you are called by the Spirit to this 
 
The World's Need. 100 
 
 work. Obey the call — do it. Never mind if it chokes 
 you — do it. Say, " I had better die in obedience than 
 live in disobedience." Oh ! these everlasting likes and 
 dislikes. ' I don't like to speak to that person,' ' I so 
 dislike writing that letter.' " Oh ! you don't know what 
 might be the consequences." Never mind the 
 consequences — do it. God will stand between you and 
 consequences ; and, if He lets you suffer, never mind — 
 then suffer ; but obey the voice of the Spirit. There 
 would have been thousands of souls saved if all those 
 who have had these urgings had obeyed them. Pray, 
 where do these urgings come from ? Do they come 
 from your own evil hearts ? Then you are better than 
 the Apostle, Separated from the Spirit that dwells in 
 you, and disunited from Christ, your living Head, you 
 are seltish, devilish. Then where do these urgings 
 come from ? Do they come from the Devil ? Satan, 
 then would indeed be divided against himself. Where 
 do they come from ? It is the Spirit of the living Crod 
 that is urging you to come out and seek to save the 
 lost. Will you obey these urgings ? Will you give 
 up your reasonings ? Will you give up your likes and 
 dislikes, and obey ? H you will, then He will come to 
 you more and more, till, like David, you will feel the 
 interests of His kingdom to be more to you than meat 
 or drink, than silver or gold. Nay, you will become 
 like him who said, " The zeal of Thine house hath 
 eaten me up." 
 
 But, further, ive are called to this ivoi'k by ivhat He 
 has done for us. And what is that? Oh I you say, I 
 cannot tell. No, no ; we shall have to get home first, 
 and then we shall never be able to tell. We shall 
 never be able to cast up that sum, not even for the 
 
 12 
 
170 The WorkVs Need. 
 
 gratification of the angels. That will remain an 
 unexplored quantity for ever, what He has done for 
 us ! ! We shall have to find out what it would have 
 been to have been lost ! and what it is to be saved in 
 all its fulness and eternity, before we can tell what He 
 has done for us ! ! 
 
 What has He done for us ? Oh ! if we had a tithe of 
 the love to sinners that He had for us, of His forbeariugf 
 patience, of His persevering effort, when He followed 
 us day and night, reasoned and reasoned with us, wooed 
 and allured us, what could we not do ? 
 
 I remember reading, somewhere, the story of a 
 nobleman who was (I think) a backslider. He was 
 stopping at some country inn, and he went up into a 
 room in which, over the mantelpiece there was a very 
 good picture of the crucifixion by a good old master, 
 and under it was written, " I suffered this for thee — 
 what hast thou done for Me ? " This question went 
 home. It struck deep. He thought — Yes, what 
 indeed ? He went out into the stables to his horses, 
 to try to get rid of the uncomfortable impression, but 
 he could not forget it. A soft, pathetic voice seemed 
 to follow him, — ' I suffered this for thee — what hast 
 thou done for Me ! ' At last it broke him down, and 
 he went to his knees. He said : ' True, Lord, I have 
 never done anything for Thee, but now I give myself 
 and my all to Thee, to be used up in Thy service.' 
 
 And have you never heard that voice in your soul, as 
 you have been kneeling at the Cross ? Did you ever 
 gaze upon that illustrious sufferer, and hear His voice, 
 as you looked back into the paltry past ? What hast 
 thou done for Me ? 
 
 Now, there have been, at the least, something like 
 
TJie World's Need. 171 
 
 350 people, who have come forward, so far, in these 
 services, professing to give themselves afresh and fully 
 to Jesus. I am sure, in the main, they have been 
 sincere. They have come for the witness of the Spirit 
 to their adoption, and for power for service. Now, 
 friends, I want to know what this is to come to — what 
 is to be the end of it ? 
 
 " What are you going to do, brother ? 
 What are you going to do ? " 
 
 And sister, too. Is it going to die out in sentiment ? 
 Is it going to evaporate in sighs and wishings, and end 
 in ' I CANNOT ? ' God forbid ! What are you going to 
 DO ? What HAVE you been doing for Him the last 
 week ? Ask yourselves. You say — ' Well, I have read 
 my Bible more.' Very good, so far as it goes. What 
 have you read it for ? ' Well,' you say, ' to get to know 
 the Lord's will, and to get instruction and comfort.' 
 Aye, exactly, but that is all for yourself^ you see. ' I 
 have prayed a great deal.' Very good. I wish every- 
 body would pray. The Apostles say all men everywhere 
 ought to pray. What for ? 'I have been asking the 
 Lord for great things.' Very good, praise the Lord ; 
 but those are for yourself, mainly. If you have been 
 led out in agonising supplication for souls, thank Grod 
 for it, and go on, as the Apostle says, "watching 
 thereunto, with all perseverance," " praying in the Hol^- 
 Ghost ; " but if it has been merely praying to get all 
 you can for yourself, what profit is that to the Lord ? 
 But you say — ' I am bringing up my family.' Exactly; 
 so are the worldly people around you, but what for? 
 For God or for yourself ? Oh ! let us look at these 
 things, friends. I am afraid a great deal of the religion 
 is a mere transition of the selfishness of the human 
 
172 The Worhrs Need. 
 
 heart from the world to rehgion. I am afraid a great 
 deal of the religion of this day ends in getting all you 
 can and doing as little as you can — like some of your 
 servants. You know the sort, who will do no more 
 than they are forced — -just get through, because they 
 are hired. There is a great deal of that kind of service 
 in these days, both towards man and towards God. 
 
 Now, friends, what have you been doing for Hix\i — 
 for the promotion of His blessed, glorious, saving 
 purposes in the world ? What have you been denying 
 yourself for the sake of His kingdom ? What labour 
 have you gone through of mind, or brain, or heart ? 
 How many letters have you written ? How many people 
 have you spoken to ? How many visits have you made ? 
 What self-denying labour have you been doing for Him 
 who has done (as you say) so much for you ? What 
 have you been suffering for Him ? Have you been 
 trying, in some little measure, to fill up behind the 
 measure of His sufferings " for His body's sake, the 
 church?" Have you been carrying the sins and sorrows 
 of a guilty world on your heart before God, and pleading 
 with Him for His own name's sake, to pour out His 
 Spirit upon the ungodly multitudes outside, and to 
 quicken half-asleep professors inside? Have you been 
 subjecting yourself to reproach and contempt — not 
 only from the world, but from half-hearted professors 
 and Pharisees, bearing the Cross, enduring the shame 
 of unkind reproaches in living and striving to save 
 them ? Oh, what have you been doing, brother and 
 sister ? 
 
 Come, now, friends, I want a practical result. He 
 suffered that for you. He is up yonder, interceding 
 for you. Five bleeding wounds He always bears in 
 
The World's Need. 173; 
 
 the presence of His P^ather for you. If He were 
 to forget you for a single moment, or cease His 
 intercession, what would happen ? What are you 
 doing for Him? He has left you an example that 
 you should follow His steps. What were they? 
 They were blood-tracked ; they were humiliated 
 steps. They were steps scorned by the world. He 
 was ignored, and traduced, and rejected of men. He 
 had not where to lay His head. He carried in His 
 body and in His soul the sorrows and sufferings of all 
 our race. He was a man of sorrows — not His own. 
 He had no reason to be sorrowful. He was the 
 Father's own beloved, and He knew it, but He was a 
 man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. The 
 griefs of this poor, lost, half-damned world He bore, 
 and they were sometimes so intolerable that they 
 squeezed the blood out of His veins. Have you 
 been following in His footsteps, in any measure? 
 He lived not for Himself. He came not to be 
 ministered unto, but to minister, and took upon Him 
 the form of a servant. What are you doing ? Oh ! 
 my friends, up, up, and be doing. Begin, if you 
 have not begun — begin to-day. Ask Him to baptise 
 you with His Spirit, and let you begin at once to 
 follow Him in the regeneration of the Spirit. You 
 are called by what He did for you ! 
 
 Then, you are called by the wants of the world. I 
 have said so much about this at other times that I 
 will not say more now, only methinks it is a theme 
 that is never exhausted, and never will be while 
 there are any more sinners to save. Oh ! the wants 
 of the world ! To me it is an overwhelming, a 
 prodigious thought, that He shed His blood for every 
 
174 The World's Need. 
 
 soul of man, and that, as He Lung there, He saw, 
 under all the vileness, and sin, and ruin of the Fall 
 — the human soul created originally in His own 
 image, and capable of infinite and eternal develop- 
 ment and progress. The soul to be rescued, washed, 
 redeemed, saved, sanctified, and glorified — He saw 
 this glorious jewel, and He gave Himself for it. 
 Look at these souls. There is not one of them so 
 mean, or vile, or base, but can be rescued by the 
 power of His Spirit, and by His living, glorious Grospel 
 brought to bear upon them. The Saviour, quoting 
 from the Prophets, says, "Ye are gods (and adds) the 
 Scriptures cannot be broken." He had no such little, 
 mean, insignificant estimate of the worth of human 
 souls, as some people have nowadays, who consign 
 whole generations to hell without any bowels of mercy 
 or compassion. Oh ! the Lord fill us with the pity 
 of Jesus Christ, who, when He saw the multitudes, 
 wept over them. 
 
 Oh ! friends, think of one such soul ! V/hat is your 
 gold, or houses, or lands — what your respectability, 
 what your reputation, what all the prizes of this 
 world ? We talk about it, but who realises it — ivho, 
 ■\VHO ? — the value of one precious, immortal soul 
 fiaved, redeemed, sanctified ? Oh, the wants of the 
 world ! They are dying, they are dying ! ! When 
 people come to me with their fastidious objections, I 
 say — " My friend, all I know is — souls are dying, 
 dying." 
 
 If your homes were being decimated by the cholera, 
 you would not be very particular about the means you 
 used to stay it, and if anybody came with objections 
 to the roughness of your measures, you would say, 
 
The WovltVs Need. lib 
 
 * the people are dying, they are dying,' and that would 
 be the end of all argument. I say, they are dying, 
 and they are to be saved. Satan is getting them : 
 I want God to have them. Jesus Christ has bought 
 them. He was the propitiation for the sins of the 
 whole world. They belong to Him, and He shall have 
 everyone I can reach, and everyone I can inspire 
 others to reach also. 
 
 The world is dying. Do you believe it ? You are 
 called by the wants of the world. Begin nearest home 
 if you like, by all means, I have little faith in those 
 people's ministrations who go abroad after others, while 
 their own are perishing a,t their firesides. Begin at 
 home, but do not end there. " Oh ! yes," people say, 
 " begin at home," but they end there ; you never hear 
 of them anywhere else, and it comes to very little what 
 they do at home, after all. God has ordained that the 
 two shall go together. Get them saved by all means, 
 but get somebody else saved as well. Set yourself to 
 work for God. Go to Him to ask Hitn how to do it. 
 Go to Him for the equipment of power and then begin. 
 Never mind how you tremble. I dare say your 
 trembling will do more good than if you were ever so 
 brave. Never mind the tears. I wish Christians 
 would weep the Gospel into people; it would often go 
 deeper than it does. Never mind if you do stammer. 
 They will believe you when it comes from the heart. 
 They will say, ' He talked to me quite natural,' as a 
 man said, some time ago — wondering that he should 
 be talked to about religion in a jaatural way ; but mind, 
 no mock feeling, for they will detect it in a minute. 
 Go to the closet until you get filled with the Spirit, 
 and then go and let it out upon them. Finney says 
 
176 The World's Meed. 
 
 "I went and let my heart out on the people." Get 
 your heart full of the living water and then open the 
 gates and let it flow out. Look them in the face and 
 take hold of them lovingly by the hand and say, ' My 
 friend, you are dying, you are going to everlasting 
 death. If nobody has ever told you till now — I have 
 come to tell you. My friend, you have a precious 
 soul. Is it saved ? ' They can understand that ! not 
 beginning in a roundabout way, but talking to them 
 straight : — * Do you ever think about your precious 
 soul ? Is it saved ? Are your sins pardoned ? Are 
 you ready to die ? ' Your rich neighbours and your 
 servant-girls and your stable-men alike, can understand 
 that. 
 
 A lady said to my daughter, ' I have begun talking 
 to people about their souls in quite a different way to 
 what I used. I begin asking them if they do not 
 know they are sinners and if ready to die, and it 
 produces quite a different effect.' For one reason she 
 has her own heart full of the Love and Spirit of God, 
 and that burns her words in. I^egin in that way and 
 see what God will do through you, for, of course, I only 
 recognise you as the instrumentality which He has 
 chosen, and those who reflect upon the instrumentality 
 reflect upon His wisdom. You go and put your hand 
 to the plough and He will give you strength to push 
 it along. 
 
 The Jjord help you to go home thinking about the 
 wants of the world, and next Sabbath we will consider 
 the qualifications for labour. 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 Luke xxiv. 49. — " And, hchokl, I send the promise of My Father 
 ■upon you : but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye he 
 endued u-ifh power from on hiyhP 
 
 Acts i. 8. — " But ye shall receive imcer, after that the Ilohj 
 Ghost is come upon you." 
 
 FriEiSDS who were present at former services will 
 remember our line of thought , without my stopping 
 to recapitulate. My chief reason for taking up this 
 subject again, after having preached four sermons on 
 it, is to meet the difficulties of some whom I believe 
 to be anxious and honest enquirers. Taking those 
 who have written and spoken to me as representatives 
 of a class, it occurred to me that there might be many 
 others in a similar state of mind, and it is a great joy 
 to me if the Lord uses me to meet real diffi-culties, and 
 to help those who are exercised by them into a higher 
 state of grace, and a more thorough and complete 
 devotion to the Lord. This is my end — God is my 
 witness — in every service. 
 
 Now, I do not want to make any reflections, and 
 will not do so any further than I can help ; but in 
 dealing with such a subject we cannot avoid this, to a 
 certain extent, as I have said before; if the truth 
 reveals error, and if trying to get into a better track 
 necessarily in some measure reflects on the old track — 
 we cannot help it, and we must not eschew the former 
 for the after. It must be manifest, I think, to every 
 spiritua. nd thoughful Christian that there is a great 
 
180 The Holy Ghost. 
 
 want somewhere in connection with the preaching of 
 the Grospel, and the instrumentalities of the church at 
 large. That there are many blessed exceptions I 
 joyfully and gladly admit. No one hails them with 
 greater gladness than I do. That there are blessed 
 green spots here and there in the wilderness is quite 
 true, and when these are gathered together and 
 descanted on in articles, they look very nice, and we 
 are apt to take the flattering unction to our souls that 
 things are not so bad after all ; but, when we come to 
 travel the country over and find how few and far 
 between these green sj^ots are, and hear what a tide of 
 lamentation and mourning reaches us all round the 
 land as to the deaduess, coldness, and dearth of 
 Christian churches, we cannot help feeling that there 
 is a GREAT WANT SOMEWHERE ! This is not only my 
 opinion, but it is almost universally admitted, that, 
 with the enormous expenditure of means, the great 
 amount of human effort, the multiplication of instru- 
 mentalities during the past century, there has not been 
 a corresponding result. 
 
 People say to me, on every hand, we have meetings 
 without number, services, societies, conventions, con- 
 ferences, but what comes of them all, coinparatively ? 
 And 1 may just say here that numbers of ministers 
 and clergymen, in private conversation, admit the 
 same thing. In fact, none are more ready to admit 
 this comparative lack of results than many dear 
 spiritual ministers. They say, when talking with us 
 behind the scenes — ' Yes, it is a sad fact. I think I 
 preach the truth. I pray about it. I am anxious for 
 results, but alas ! alas ! the conversions are but few 
 and far between.' And then, not only are those con- 
 
The Holy Gho.^f. 181 
 
 versions few, but in the mass of instances superficial — 
 we should expect from such a putting of the truth as 
 that we have been reading about, numerous and 
 continual turnings to the Lord as in those days — we 
 should expect men coming out openly from sin and 
 from God-dishonouring courses, businesses, and pro- 
 fessions — coming out from fashionable and worldly 
 circles, abjuring the world, and literally and absolutely 
 following the Christ as in those days. That is what 
 we have a right to expect, and yet how comparatively 
 rare they are, so that when people do this, there is 
 quite a commotion, and it is talked about all over 
 tlie land. Now I say this is universally admitted, 
 and it behoves us to ask before God and with an 
 earnest heart-yearning, desiring to improve this state 
 of things. Where is the lack, ivhat is the want ? 
 
 Now note, secondly, this want is not the truth. Oh ! 
 what a great deal of talk we have about the truth, and 
 not any too much. I would not yield to any man or 
 woman in this audience in my love for this Bible. I 
 love this Word and regard it as the standard of all 
 faith and practice, and our guide to live by ; but it is 
 not enough of itself. The c/reat luant is not the truth, 
 for you see facts would contradict this theory. If it were 
 the truth, then there would be no lack at this day, 
 compared with other times, because we never had so 
 much of the truth. There never was so much 
 preaching of the truth, or such a wide dissemination 
 of the Word of God, yet, comparatively, where are the 
 results ? 
 
 Further, not only as to quantity, but as to 
 quality am I discouraged. Not only are there 
 comparatively few conversions, but a great many of 
 
182 The Hohj Ghost. 
 
 these are of a questionable kind. We should not only 
 ask — are people converted, but what are they 
 converted to ? What SORT of saints are they ? 
 Because, I contend, you had far better let a man alone 
 in sin than give him a sham conversion, and make 
 him believe he is a Christian when he is nothing of 
 the kind. So you see we must look after the quality 
 as well as the quantity, and I fear, we have an awful 
 amount of spurious production, and it behoves us — 
 and I will, for one, if I were to be crucified for it to- 
 morrow — be true to what the Spirit of God has taught 
 rae on this point, I will never pander to things as they 
 are for fear of the persecution which follows trying to 
 put them right. God forbid ! 
 
 Then, I say, the lack is not triiih. There will be 
 thousands of sermons preached to-day — the truth, and 
 notliing but the truth. Nobody will pretend to say 
 they were not in perfect keeping with the Word of 
 God ; and yet they will be perfect failures, and nobody 
 will know it better than they who preach them ! 
 These arc facts. 
 
 I was talking, on this point, a while ago, with a 
 good man, who said, ' Ah ! yes, I have not seen a 
 conversion in my church for these two years.' Now, 
 what was the reason ? There ivas a reason, and I am 
 afraid many might say the same. Yet there are the 
 unconverted. They come to be operated upon. 
 Take a church where there is a congregation of, say 
 800 or 1,000, suppose with a membership of 200 or 
 300. What becomes of the 500 or 700 unbelievers, 
 who come and go, Sunday after Sunday, like a door on 
 its hinges, neither the better nor worse ? — na}', God 
 grant it might be so, but they are worse. They get 
 
Tlie Holy Ghost. 183 
 
 enough light to light them down to damnation, but 
 they do not get enough power to lift them into 
 salvation. Wltat IS tee matter? There must be 
 something wrong. Will you account for it. It ought 
 to be accounted for ! It ought not so to be. God is 
 not changed. Surely He is as anxious for the salvation 
 of men now^ as He ever was. Human hearts are not 
 changed ; they are neither better nor worse ; they 
 are depraved, vile, devilish — just the same. The 
 Gospel is exactly the same power it ever was, 
 rightly experienced, lived, and preached. It is still 
 the power of God unto salvation. Then what is the 
 matter ? The truth is preached. The people hear it, 
 and yet they remain as they were. Where is the lack ? 
 
 Now, I say, and I most unhesitatingly assert, that 
 the great want is Power — this power of which we 
 have been reading. 
 
 And I want to remark, thirdly, tliat this power is 
 as distinct, and definite, and separate, a gift of God, 
 as ivas this Book, as ivas the Soij} or any other gift 
 ivhich He has given its 
 
 It is distinctly recognised, not only in our texts, 
 but, as we read to you again and again, as a distinct 
 •and definite gift accompanying the efforts of those 
 who live on the conditions on which God can give it 
 to them. We cannot explain this gift, but it is the 
 power of tlie Holy Spirit of God in the soul of the 
 speaker accompanying His word, making it cut and 
 pierce to the dividing asunder soul and spirit. " You 
 shall receive poioer after that the Holy Ghost is come 
 upon you." " Until you be endued with," — not the 
 truth, not faith (they had faith before that), but, — 
 " power ; " and, as He says in another place, " I will 
 
184 The Holy Ghost. 
 
 give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries 
 shall not be able to gainsay nor resist." Though they 
 may stone you, as they did Stephen, they shall be cut 
 to the heart, and made to feel the power of your 
 testimony. 
 
 Now, I find people who go to work, which is all right, 
 because the power comes to us in obedient faith ; but 
 they go trusting in their own efforts. They are without 
 this endowment of power, and they see no result. The 
 work is a comparative failure. Oh ! what numbers of 
 people have come to me who have been at work in 
 different directions, in churches, as ministers, elders, 
 deacons, leaders, Sabbath-school teachers, tract dis- 
 tributors, and the like, confessing that they had been 
 working for more or less lengthened periods, and had 
 seen comparatively little result. They sa}^ ' Do you 
 think this is right ? Do you think I ought to go on? ' 
 G-o on, assuredly, but not in the same track. Gro on, 
 most decidedly, but seek a fresh inspiration. There is 
 something wrong, or you would have seen some fruit of 
 your labour — not all the fruit. Grod does not give to • 
 any of us to see it all ; but we do see enough to assure 
 us that the Holy Ghost is accompanying our testimony. 
 God's people have always done that when they have 
 worked in conformity with the conditions on which the 
 power can be given. 
 
 Now, this is how I account for the want of results — 
 the want of the direct, pungent, enlightening, convict- 
 ing, restoring, transforming power of the Holy Ghost ; 
 and I care not how gigantic the intellect of the agent, or 
 how equipped from the school of human learning, I would 
 rather have a Hallelujah Lass, a little child, with tlie 
 power of the Holy Ghost, hardly able to put two 
 
The Hohj Ghost. 185 
 
 sentences of the Queen's English together, to come to 
 help, bless, and benefit my soul, than I would have the 
 most learned divine in the kingdom without it, for it is 
 "not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit," Oh ! 
 that you would learn it. When you have learnt that, 
 you will be made: when you experience it, you will lay. 
 hold on God. It is not by might, any kind of might 
 — might of intellect, or learning, or eloquence, or 
 position, or influence; it is not by might, nor by power 
 — man's power — of any sort, but by My Spirit. That 
 is as true as it ever was. Here is the secret of the 
 church's failure ! She is like Israel of old. She 
 hath multiplied her defenced cities and her palaces, but 
 she hath forgotten the God of Israel, in whom her 
 strength is. If you will read the history of the church 
 from the beginning you will find that true which I say, 
 that just to the degree that the church has increased 
 in the material she has decreased in the spiritual. I do 
 not say it ought to be so ; I do not say that is a necessity. 
 I only give you a significant fact that it has been so. 
 
 You say — ' How do you account for it ? ' I account 
 for it because we poor, wretched, tiny, helpless creature.', 
 although we cannot get anything good in the creature, 
 yet put some trust in it. But when God teaches us that 
 we have nothing to trust in, when He makes us realise 
 our own nothingness and utter helplessness, and gives 
 us hold of Him with the grasp of despair, then we will 
 begin to be of some use — and never till then. It is 
 God worketh in us and by us. The Apostle labours all 
 the way through to show and convince everybody that 
 it was God in him and not of himself at all. Though 
 he could have preached with enticing words of man's 
 wisdom, and, no doubt, had many a temptation to do 
 
 13 
 
186 Thp JTohj Ghost. 
 
 it, as everbody has who has dipped into the flowery 
 paths of human rhetoric and learning, yet he eschewed 
 this as he would the Devil. He said, no ! — " this one 
 thing I do" — putting aside absolutely all else, he went 
 on straight, to that work, till they cut his head off. 
 
 I believe you do })erceive ; but, if you do not, take 
 the Book and examine it yourself. Be at the trouble. 
 You will not get at the mind of the Lord without a great 
 deal of trouble on these matters of power, spiritual 
 union, and the like. Take the Bible with you on 
 your knees before the Lord ; show Him the words, 
 and say, 'Now, Lord, show me the meaning of this.' 
 Wait, and there will come a voice from the excellent 
 glory. There will come light as from the Shekinah, 
 which will reveal it in your spiritual consciousness, 
 and you will thus know that thing for ever. You will 
 be wiser than your teachers with respect to that 
 particular point. 
 
 Further, you say, ' Can we have this power equally 
 with the early disciples ? ' I say, reasoning by 
 analogy, assuming that what God has done in the 
 past He will continue to do in the future, is it not 
 likely tliat He will give it to us, because we equally 
 need it? — we poor things, in our day, as they did in 
 theirs, we equally need it : first, because the character 
 of the afients is the sainie. We are very much like 
 them, and they were very much like us. Thank Cfod. 
 It has often encouraged me. If they had been men 
 of gigantic intellects and extraordinary education, 
 training, and position ; if they had possessed all 
 human equipment and qualifications, we might have 
 looked back through the ages in despair, and said, ' I 
 can never be such as they were.' Look what they 
 
Tlip^ Hohj GJiost. 187 
 
 were, naturally, apart from this gift of power. The 
 Holy Ghost has taken care to give us their true 
 characters. They were men of like passions, weak- 
 nesses, tendencies, liability to fall, with ourselves — 
 just such poor, frail, weak, easily-tripped-up creatures, 
 and, in many instai^.ces, unbelieving and disobedient, 
 before Pentecost. Now, I say this is encouraging 
 for us all. 
 
 You remember what Jesus said to Mary — " Go and 
 tell my disciples and Peter." Mary, perhaps, would 
 have left Peter out after his shameful denial of the 
 Lord ; for fear of this, Jesus said, " Go and tell my 
 disciples and Peter." 
 
 Ah ! there are some here saying, ' But Peter was 
 not so bad as I am.' Well, we don't know anything 
 about that, but, whether you are worse or not, the 
 Holy Ghost is equal to the emergency. He can cure 
 you. He can baptise you with His power. You may 
 have denied Him, if not as Peter did, yet practically 
 as badly. It makes no difference to God whether you 
 have been a little bad or very bad ; whether you have 
 denied Him once or thrice, or whether you have 
 denied Him with oaths and curses. If you will only 
 come and comply with the conditions, He will look 
 on you, heal you, and baptise you with power. Did 
 they not all forsake Him and flee, except a few poor 
 faithful women ? All the world forsook Him and fled 
 in the hour of His extremity. ' Ah ! ' you say, ' well, 
 I have done the same myself. I would not watch 
 with Him one hour. I have betrayed Him before 
 my friends and acquaintances in the world, where I 
 have been brouglit into circumstances that have tested 
 my fidelity. My courage has failed, and I have 
 
188 The Eohj Ghost 
 
 failed to witness for Ilim.' Yes, I know and agree 
 with 3^ou that it was base ingratitude. You were a 
 traitor, indeed, but still, if you will come back, 'Peter,' 
 and repent, and do your first works. He will receive 
 you — baptise you with power. Oh ! what they were 
 before Pentecost, and what they were after ! Poor 
 Peter, who could not stand the questionings of a 
 servant maid, who could not dare to have it said that 
 he was one of the despised Nazarenes, what a 
 valiant soldier he afterwards became for the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, and how tradition says he was crucified 
 for his Master at the last. Anyway, we know he was 
 a faithful and valiant soldier to the end of his journey. 
 
 Now, this baptism will transform you as it did 
 them ; it will make you all prophets and prophetesses, 
 according to your measure. 
 
 Will you come and let Him baptise you ? Will 
 you learn, once and for ever, tha,t it is not a question 
 of human merit, strength or deserving at all, but 
 simply a rpiestion o^ suhhiission, obedience, faith. 
 
 Then we need it because not only are the agents 
 the same, but our work is esserdially the same. 
 
 It may differ in its outward manifestations because 
 we live in an age of greater toleration, but it is just 
 the same in essence, and I do not know, as to the 
 manifestation, when you come to do it in Apostolic 
 fashion, with the Apostolic spirit, whether you do not 
 get very much the i^ame Apostolic treatment. They 
 gnash upon you with their tei'tli, and do as much as 
 the law will let them, and sometimes a little more, in 
 the way of stoning and persecuting you. 
 
 The great thing to be done by this power of God 
 is to subdue the naturally evil, wicked, and rebellious 
 
The Holy Ghost. 189 
 
 heart of man. Now God alone is able to do that. 
 That is a superhuman work. You may enlighten a 
 man's intellect, civilise his manners, reform his habits, 
 make him a respectable, honest, industrious member 
 of society, without the power of God, but you cannot ^ 
 transform his soul. That is too much for any human - 
 reformer. That is the prerogative of the Holy Ghost, - 
 and I have not a shadow of a doubt that the eternal 
 day will reveal every other kind of work to be wood, 
 hay, stubble. All the sham conversions, all the people 
 whose lives and opinions have been changed l^y any- 
 thing short of this power will be wood, hay, stubble. 
 It is the prerogative of the Spirit of God. Therefore, 
 God never pretends to do it by any other means \kqsL. ^ 
 all the way through the Bible this power^L^-^iscribed ^ 
 to the Spirit of God. Therefore, wei^wa^ this Spirit x 
 to do this work. What ! you set yourself to enlighten f^ 
 a darkened human soul, to convince a hardened, q, 
 rebellious sinner, to convert a rebel in arms against 
 God, with an inveterate hatred in the very core of his 
 soul against God and all about God. You set your- 
 self to bring down that — to transform that evil, 
 wicked heart, to subdue that soul to submission and 
 obedience! — you try it, try it without the Spirit of 
 God. Oh ! no, 3^ou want that Spirit. You want the 
 same measure of that Spirit, just the same, which 
 Paul had. 
 
 And what is our work ? To go and subjugate the 
 world to Jesus ; everybody we can reach, everybody 
 we can influence, and bring them to the feet of Jesus, 
 and make them realise that He is their lawful King 
 and lawgiver; that the Devil is a iTsurper, and that 
 they are to come and serve Christ all the days of 
 
190 The Holy Ghost. 
 
 their lives. Dare any of us think of it without this 
 equipment of power ? Talk about ' Can we have it ? ' 
 — we are of no use without it. What can we do 
 without it ? This is the reason of the efifeteness of 
 so much professed Christianity ; there is no Holy 
 Grhost in it. It is all rotten. It is like a very pretty 
 corpse — you cannot say there is this wantingr or the 
 other wanting ; it is a perfect form, but dead. It is 
 like a good galvanic battery. It is all right — perfect 
 in all its parts — but when you touch it there is no 
 effect — there is no fire or shock. What is the matter ? 
 It only wants the fire — the power. 
 
 Oh ! friends, we want the power that we may be 
 able to go and stretch ourselves upon the dead in 
 trespasses and sins, and breathe into him the breath 
 of spiritual life. We want to be able to go and touch 
 his eyes that he may see, and speak to the dead and 
 deaf with the voice of God and make them hear. 
 This is what we want — rowER. 
 
 If we equally need it, is it likely that God will 
 withhold it ? Why, the Book, rightly read and 
 understood, is full of promise and exliortation to get 
 it. Is it likely that if we are as frail as they were, 
 if tlie work is the same, is it likely that the God of 
 all grace, and our Father as much as theirs, and as 
 much in sympathy with the souls of men, will with- 
 hold it from us No, No. But our Saviour distinctly 
 told us that He bought it for us — that it was more 
 expedient that His people should have it than that 
 He should remain with them. It is promised to all 
 believers to the end of time. The conditions you 
 know — sinq)ly putting away everything that hinders, 
 casting aside every doubtful tiling, trampling it in 
 
The Eoly Ghost. 191 
 
 the dust ; then a full, whole-hearted surrender to 
 Him, embracing the Cross, embracing His will at all 
 costs and sacrifices, and then a determined march 
 to the upper room at Jerusalem and a determined 
 abiding there until you get it — these are the con. 
 ditions. Anybody can have it on these terms. 
 
 Then, in conclusion, let me remind you — and it 
 makes my own soul almost reel when I think of it 
 — that God holds us responsible. He holds you 
 responsible for all the good you might do if you had 
 it. Do not deceive yourself. He will have the Jive 
 talents with their increase. He will not have an 
 excuse for one, and you will not dare to go up to the 
 throne, and say, *Thou wast a hard Master, reaping 
 where Thou hast not sown, and gathering where Thou 
 hadst not strewn. Thou badest me to save souls 
 when Thou knewest I had not the power.' What will 
 He say to you? ' Wicked and slothful servant, out of 
 thine own mouth will I judge thee. You knew where 
 you could have got the power. You knew the 
 conditions. You might have had it. Where are the 
 souls you might have saved ? Where are the children 
 that I would have given you? Where is the fruit?' 
 Oh ! friends, these are solemn and awful realities. If 
 I did not believe them I should not stand here Oh, 
 what you might do ! Who can tell ? Who would 
 ever have thought, twenty years ago, when I first 
 raised my voice, a feeble, trembling woman, one of 
 the most timid and bashful the Lord ever saved, the 
 hundreds of precious souls that would be given me ? 
 I only refer to myself because I know my own case 
 better than that of another; but, let me ask you — 
 supposing I had held back and been disobedient to 
 
192 The Hohj Ghost. 
 
 the Heavenly vision, what would God have said to me 
 for the loss of all this fruit ? Thank Grod, much of it is 
 already gathered into heaven, people who have sent me 
 word from their dying beds, that they blessed Grod they 
 had ever heard ray voice, saying that they should wait 
 -for me on the other side, prepared to lead me to the 
 throne — what would have become of the fruit ? / 
 should not have had it, anyway. They would never 
 have become my crown of rejoicing in the day of the 
 Lord. Oh, who can tell what God can do by any man 
 or woman, however timid, however faint, if only fully 
 given up to Him. My brother. He holds you res- 
 ponsible. He holds you responsible, my sister — you, 
 who wrote me about your difficulties and temptations 
 in testifying of Jesus — He holds you responsible. 
 What are you going to do ? Ask yourself. It is 
 coming. You believe it. You say you do. Unless 
 you are a confirmed hypocrite, you do believe — that 
 you are going to stand before the throne of His glory. 
 You believe you are going to stand before Him by. 
 and-bye, when you shall receive according to the 
 things you have done in your body. What shall you 
 say ? The world is dying — souls are being damned 
 at an awful rate every day. Men are running to 
 destruction. Torrents of iniquity are rolling down 
 our streets and through our world. God is almost 
 tired of the cry of our sins and iniquities going up 
 into His ears. What are you going to do, brother ? 
 What are you going to do ? Will you set to work ? 
 Will you get this i)0wer ? Will you put away every- 
 thing that hinders ? Will you have it at all costs ? 
 
 We had a letter only on Friday, about a gentleman 
 who had been reconverted in the services of The 
 
The Ilohj aiiod. 193 
 
 Salvation Army, telling us that he has relinquished an 
 income of £800 a year, in order to keep a conscience 
 void of offence — this is the result of the power of the 
 Holy Ghost. I heard of another gentleman who was 
 invited to a party. After dinner, the card-table was 
 got out, as usual, and when the cards were all spread 
 and everbody was ready to begin, this gentleman 
 jumped up, and pushed it away, and said, ' I have done 
 with this for ever.' The lady who told me said, ' He 
 was down on his knees before we had time to turn 
 round, and was praying for us and for all the house. 
 'Oh!' she added, 'you should have seen them.' Yes, 
 of course, every man felt like the people round the 
 Saviour. Every man's own conscience condemned 
 him, ' They went off home, without any more card- 
 playing, or dancing, or wine-drinking that night.' 
 Come out from amongst the ungodly. Testify against 
 them. Eeprove them. Entreat them with tears. But 
 be determined to deliver your soul of their blood. God 
 will give you the power, and He holds you responsible 
 for doing this — you people who have been coming here 
 — who have received the light. Will you do it? If 
 you will, we shall meet again, and rejoice with joy 
 unspeakable. If you do, we shall praise God forever 
 that He brought us inside the walls of this building, 
 long after it has mouldered into dust. There shall be 
 children and grandchildren, and great grandchildren 
 from you spiritually, if you will only be faithful. 
 
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 long desired by many friends, a Sketch of the Salvation Army 
 work from its commencement. Paper, Is. ; cloth boards, Is. 6d. 
 
 SALVATION NAVVY : Being an account of the Life, 
 
 Death, and Victories of Captain John Allen, of the Salvation 
 Army. I'aper, Is. ; cloth. Is. (id. 
 
 196 
 
Publications of The Salvation Army. 
 
 THE "WAR CRY." The Official Gazette of The Salva- 
 tion Ariiiv, consists of sixteen pages, sixty-four columns, with 
 illiistnitions, and contains the latest intelligence of the progress 
 of Salvation Army work in ALL PAUTS OF THE WORLD. 
 Every Saturday. Price, Id.; post free, Is. 8d. per (piarter; 
 3s. 3d. i)cr half-year; Cs. M. jier annum. 
 
 THE "YOUNG SOLDIER." The Salvation Army 
 (Children's " War Cry." Sixteen pages. Largely illustrated. 
 Price id., or post free to any address. Is. Id. per quarter ; 4s. 4d. 
 per annum. 
 
 "ALL THE WORLD." A Montlily Magazine devoted 
 to the Record of Salvation Army work in all lands. Price Gd. ; 
 8s. per annum, po t free. 
 
 THE "DELIVERER." A Monthly Eecord of the 
 Rescue Work of The Salvation Army. Price Id.; Is. 6d. per 
 annum, post free. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS BOOKS. 
 THE SALVATION SOLDIERS' GUIDE : Being a Bible 
 
 C'hapter for the Morniiig and Evening of Every Day in the 
 Year, with Fragments for Mid-day Reading. This hook contains 
 almost all those portions of Scripture wliich would he read as 
 lessons in a jiuhlic service. Tlie four Gospels are hariuonised, 
 the historical liooks of the Old Testament condensed, and the 
 genealogies, tlie Lrvitical law, and the portions of jjrophecy 
 referring to ])articular heathen nations are omitted, so as to 
 hring the bo;)k down to pocket size, in a type easily readable in 
 the open air. 570 pages. Price, limp cloth, Gd. ; red c'oth, red 
 edges, Is.; superior red leather, gilt edges, gilt lettering, •. s. ; 
 red French Morocco, circuit edges, gilt, 2s. Cd. 
 
 QUESTION OF QUESTIONS. By Caractacus. Paper, 
 
 Is. ; cloth, Is. Gd. 
 
 LIFE OF J. NELSON. A Stirring Narrative. Limp 
 cloth, 8d. 
 
 SCRIPTURAL WAY OF HOLINESS. Paper, Is. 
 
 WHAT DOTH HINDER ? By Elizabeth Swift Brengli^. 
 Being a series of character sketches from life, illustratiiig the 
 different hindrances met with in the highway of Holiness, and 
 showing how they may be overcome by the power of God. 
 Paper, 6d. ; cloth, Is. 
 
 FROM OCEAN TO OCEAN ; or, The Salvation Army's 
 March from the Atlantic to the Pacitic. By Commission ki? 
 Balmngton Booth. Price, ;'.s. Gd. 
 
 197 
 
Publications of The Salvation Army. 
 
 DRUM TAPS : Being a series of Sketches illustrative of 
 tlie Army's peculiar opercations for tlip rescue of the '• Lapsed 
 ]\Iasses." By E. S. B. Illustrated. Paper. Is. ; cloth, Is. tid. ; 
 H'ilt edges, 2s. 0"d. 
 
 HOUSE-TOP SAINTS: Being a collection of most 
 
 interesting incidents in connection with Salvation work. Price, 
 paper, (id. ; cloth, Is. 
 
 LIFE OF CHAS. G. FINNEY, The American Kevivalist. 
 A New and Pevised Eilition. Price, Is. ; cloth boards, 2s. 
 
 HOLINESS READINGS. By the General, Mrs. Booth, 
 the Cuikf-op-Staff, Miss Booth, and others. Being E.xtracts 
 from the "Salvationist" and the "War Cry." 200 pages. 
 Price. ])aper. Is. : cloth, Is. (Id. Strongly recommended. 
 
 DOCTRINES OF THE SALVATION ARMY. 6d., 
 
 post free. 
 
 ALL ABOUT THE SALVATION ARMY. Price, Id. ; or 
 
 ()S. (!d. ])er 100, post free. 
 
 LIFE LINKS in tlie Warfare of Comntissioner and Mrs. 
 Booth-Tucker. Price, Gd. ; post free, 7d. 
 
 SALVATION ARMY MUSIC. For Soul-saving Serrices, 
 ()pon-:iir Meetings, and the Home Circle. Cloth, limp, 2s. Gd.; 
 cloth hoards, red edges, ;'>s. Gd. 
 
 THE NEW MUSIC BOOK : Being Volume II. of 
 
 Salvation Armv Music. Price, limp cloth. Is. ; cloth boards 
 Is. Gd. 
 
 SALVATION ARMY BRASS BAND MUSIC BOOKS, 
 
 for the \ari()us instruments composing a Full Br^iss Hand, and 
 containing eighty-eight of the most jiopular tunes in general use, 
 both for indoor meetings an<l open-air work. Printe<l on extra 
 thick paper, and strongly hound. Price 9d. eac!i ])art. 
 
 THE MUSICAL SALVATIONIST. Price, ;5d., montldy ; 
 post free, ;$^d. ; ;>.s. Gd. per annum. T'nder this title are i-srued, 
 Monthly, the newest Songs, gathered from all parts of the world. 
 Each issue contains Eiglit pages of Music, with a beautifully- 
 designed Cover, and the form is such as to allow of the Numbers 
 being bound in Yearly Volumes. Volumes I., JI., 111., IV., and 
 V. are now ready. Price, 2s. Cd. each Volume. 
 
 The foreijoinq may he ohtained hi/ ordoi- of Simimcin, M.vrshai.i., 
 Hamilton, Kent i: Co., Ltd. ; John Snow & Co., 2. Jv;/ Lane, 
 Poieriwitlir Row, K. C. ; an;/ liooLseUer, Ralliraij Bookstall, or A'eirs- 
 ai/int. Also of the 0[lirers of the various Salvation Arnii/ Cor/is, or 
 direct from the Publishing DejHirtment, '.)S, 100, & 102, Clerkcnivell 
 Jicad, London, K. (.'. 
 
 198 
 

 ^yttnt 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 
 v««<HM(k;«an Mta>' 
 
 CAVLORO 
 
 PRINTED INU S.A. 
 
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