BS
2452
B3
A 548700
H72
1860


GIFT OF
GEORGE C. MAHON, Esq.,
TO THE LIBRARY OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN.
BS
2452
B3.
H72
1860
BLIND BARTIMEUS
AND
HIS GREAT PHYSICIAN
BY
PROFESSOR W. J. HOGE

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TWENTY-FIRST THOUSAND,
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ALEXANDER STRAHAN & CO
LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO.
1860.
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Paton Ritchie, Printers, Edinburgh.
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CONTENTS.
THE NARRATIVE,
INTRODUCTION,
CHAPTER I.
Page
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III.
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V.
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VI.
VII.
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VIII.
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IX.
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XI.
XII.
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170

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BLIND BARTIMEUS.
MATTHEW'S ACCOUNT.
XX. 29-34.

IND as they departed from Jericho, a great
multitude followed Him. And, behold, two
blind men sitting by the way-side, when
they heard that Jesus passed by, cried out,
saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou Son of David.
And the multitude rebuked them, because they should
hold their peace: but they cried the more, saying, Have
mercy on us, O Lord, thou Son of David. And Jesus
stood still, and called them, and said, What will ye
that I shall do unto you? They say unto Him, Lord,
that our eyes may be opened. So Jesus had compas-
sion on them, and touched their eyes: and imme-
diately their eyes received sight, and they followed
Him.
MARK'S ACCOUNT.
x. 46–52.
:
And they came to Jericho and as He went out of
Jericho with His disciples, and a great number of
A
2
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
people, blind Bartimeus, the son of Timeus, sat by
the highway-side begging. And when he heard that
it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, and say,
Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me. And
many charged him that he should hold his peace: but
he cried the more a great deal, Thou Son of David,
have mercy on me. And Jesus stood still, and com-
manded him to be called. And they call the blind man,
saying unto him, Be of good comfort, rise; He calleth
thee. And he, casting away his garment, rose, and
came to Jesus. And Jesus answered and said unto
him, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? The
blind man said unto Him, Lord, that I might receive
my sight. And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy
faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he
received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way.
LUKE'S ACCOUNT.
xviii. 35-43.
And it came to pass, that as He was come nigh
unto Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the way-side
begging; and hearing the multitude pass by, he asked
what it meant. And they told him, that Jesus of
Nazareth passeth by. And he cried, saying, Jesus,
thou Son of David, have mercy on me.
And they
which went before rebuked him, that he should hold
his peace: but he cried so much the more, Thou Son
of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stood, and
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
3
commanded him to be brought unto Him: and when
he was come near, He asked him, saying, What wilt
thou that I shall do unto thee? And he said, Lord,
that I may receive my sight. And Jesus said unto
him, Receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee.
And immediately he received his sight, and followed
Him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they
saw it, gave praise unto God.
THE FULL NARRATIVE.
COMPILED FROM THE THREE EVANGELISTS.
And they came to Jericho: and as He went out of
Jericho with His disciples, and a great number of
people, blind Bartimeus, the son of Timeus, sat by
the highway-side begging. And hearing the multi-
tude pass by, he asked what it meant; and they told
him that Jesus of Nazareth passeth by. And when
he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to
cry out, and say, "Jesus, Thou Son of David, have
mercy on me! O Lord, Thou Son of David, have
mercy on me!" And many-they which went before
—rebuked him, and charged him that he should hold
his peace. But he cried the more, the more a great
deal, “O Lord, thou Son of David, have mercy on
me!"
And Jesus stood still, and called him. He also
commanded him to be called, and even to be brought
unto Him.
4
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
And they call the blind man, saying unto him, "Be
of good comfort! Rise! He calleth thee!" And he,
casting away his garment, rose and came to Jesus.
And when he was come near, Jesus asked him, say-
ing, “What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?" The
blind man answered and said unto Him, "Lord, that
I might receive my sight!" So Jesus had compassion
and touched his eyes, and said unto him, Receive
thy sight! Go thy way: thy faith hath saved thee."
66
And immediately he received his sight, and followed
Jesus in the way, glorifying God. And all the people,
when they saw it, gave praise unto God.

INTRODUCTION.

ATTHEW, Mark, and Luke all give this
story, but with some variations. Indeed,
there are two things which look like con-
Mstory,
tradictions. In Luke we read that the
miracle was wrought as Jesus was come nigh unto
Jericho, while Matthew and Mark agree that it was
as He went out of the city. Again, Matthew says two
blind men were healed, while Mark and Luke speak
of but one.
Matthew Henry gives a very short answer to the
second difficulty. "If there were two," he says, "there
was one." In this he but expresses, in his quaint way,
the well-known rule of interpretation that, where several
historians narrate the same event, it is no contradiction
for one to give incidents about which others are silent.
If, indeed, the number is an essential element in the
narrative, it must be given with accuracy. If a general
won a battle with ten thousand men, he would be a
false historian who should say he won it with five
thousand. But if one historian should tell us of a
great captain's fighting two battles the same day, it
would be no impeachment of his veracity, if another
6
INTRODUCTION.
chronicler should tell us of but one of these battles.
One might be so insignificant that it would be lost in
the greatness of the other; or it might not concern the
special design of one of the narratives; or any similar
reason might prevail. And surely the number is not
the great thing here. Christ healed such multitudes
that, in any given case, it is a small matter to the
gospel narrative whether He healed one or more.
Amid the gracious prodigality of His miracles, there
may well be a noble negligence, on the part of His
biographers, as to the exact number He cured. The
great thing is, that He healed at all maladies incurable
by any power but divine. And one Evangelist might
often have special reasons (as Mark, perhaps, in this
case) for relating only the more conspicuous and im-
portant cure. Why should any one feel a difficulty
when Luke simply tells us that, when Christ was near
Jericho, He wrought so illustrious a miracle as giving
sight to a blind man; and Mark, writing, perhaps, to
some who would be especially interested to know this,
says that "the son of Timeus, blind Bartimeus".
man widely known, it may be-on that day received
his sight; while Matthew tells us that, on that blessed
day, two souls were made glad by the healing word of
Christ?
Thus the seeming contradiction vanishes, and turns
rather into a confirmation of the truth and independence
of the narratives. An impostor would have avoided
this.
The other difficulty remains. Matthew and Mark
say the cure was performed as He left the city; Luke,
INTRODUCTION.
7
as He came near it. How shall these statements be
reconciled?
Several solutions have been proposed, of which I
think the following is the best.
One blind man cried to Christ as He was going into
Jericho, but was not cured until, joining himself to a
companion in blindness, they cried together to Him
as He was leaving the city. Luke, however, having
begun the narrative where the first man cried out,
carries it on to the end without interruption. All
historians do this. They constantly relate events
which run through months or even years, never
breaking the thread of their narrative by even an
allusion, meantime, to whatever else is taking place.
In this case the story of the blind man begins on one
side of the city, as Christ is going in, and ends on the
other, as He is going out; while in the city His visit
to Zaccheus is to be related.¹ Now, three courses are
possible to the narrator. He may begin with what
took place as Christ drew near the city, and tell that
story to its end, and then tell what occurred in the
city. This is what Luke does. Or commencing with
what began on one side of the city and ended on the
other, he may suddenly check his narrative to tell of
Zaccheus, and then go on again with his account of
the blind men. But this would sacrifice our pleasure
in the separate and undisturbed beauty of each picture,
merely to secure what Trench well calls a “painful
accuracy." Or, finally, he may refuse to begin the
first story until he comes where the most important
1 Luke xix. 1–10.
8
co
INTRODUCTION.
part of it took place, namely, the actual healing of the
men, as Christ was leaving Jericho. This is what
Matthew and Mark do.
Like the other, this seeming discrepancy lies too
much on the surface for the work of an impostor. He
would have made his three narratives harmonise more
easily, lest any should reject them. If the Gospels
were cunningly devised fables, there would be con-
tradictions indeed, but not like these. They would
not lie on the surface, readily detected, and avoided
as readily; but in the very depth and heart of things,
hard perhaps to discern, and impossible to reconcile.
Gaining easy triumphs for a time, such narratives
would be utterly overwhelmed at length. But true
men write with an unconscious variety and natural-
ness, which looks at first like contradiction, but which,
more closely questioned, gives out a deeper testimony
for independence and integrity.
I wish now to say something of the relation of
Christ's miracles to things more purely spiritual, that
I may at once guard and justify the use I intend to
make of the record of the healing of blind Bartimeus.
1. I do not suppose a double sense, as it is called,
in which the words have, besides the obvious meaning
which we would give them in other books, a hidden,
spiritual meaning, which we must task our ingenuity
to search out. This theory is without foundation, and
opens a wide door for every fancy and heresy. The
words have but one sense. They are simply a record
of a miracle of healing.
INTRODUCTION.
9
2. But the miracles of the New Testament are miracles
of grace. They are not mere signs and wonders. Power
is not their chief element. They are essentially redemp-
tive—works of God's forgiving and restoring love. They
are not meant merely to astonish, much less to terrify.
They bless, and curse not; bringing no fire from
heaven¹ but that which relumes the extinguished
lamp of life; and dealing with leprosy, blindness, and
pain, only that they may drive them away. They are
not even mere proofs of a divine mission. They do
not, like the Magi, come from some far-off region, and
having offered their incense to Christ, pass away again
to be seen no more. They all speak the language
of Canaan,³ and, with heavenly tongue, bear witness
that Jesus is the Son of God, while, as sons, they
have the freedom of His house, and abide with Him
for ever.5 They prove His mission chiefly as they
themselves are a part of it. They establish His Mes-
siahship by exemplifying it. To men doubting and
perishing they bring heavy clusters from that Eshcol,
whose reality and surpassing fruitfulness they would
demonstrate.6
4
Ages ago, Augustine expressed this thought with
much beauty. Speaking of the miracles, he says,
"Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the Physician
of our eternal health, and to this end He took the
weakness of our nature, that our weakness might not
last for ever." And Trench finally calls them "miracles
of the Incarnation-of the Son of God, who had taken
¹ Luke ix. 54-56. 2 Matt. ii. I, II, 12.
3 Isa. xix. 18.
* John v. 36; xx. 30, 31. 5 John viii. 35. Numb. xiii. 23-
6
IO
INTRODUCTION.
our flesh, and taking would heal it." Thus is every
miracle of Christ, as he says again, "an index and
prophecy of the inner work of man's deliverance."
"In each of them the word of salvation is incorporated
in an act of salvation."
Sin has cursed not only man's soul but his body,¹
and there is a fearful analogy between the diseases,
distortions, and ruins of the body, and the deformities
and corruptions of the soul. Therefore when we see
our Saviour manifesting His healing grace in repairing
the ravages which the Destroyer has made on man's
body, we cannot fail also to have new and deeper in-
sight into His redeeming work on man's spirit. And
it would be wonderful, when this is so, if some of the
records of these gracious healings should not be,
throughout, aptest illustrations of a sinner's restora-
tion by the power and grace of Jesus.
3. Again, great principles are often contained in
these narratives, which are of universal application.
If we see that the vilest have free access to Jesus;
that He heals the wretched without price, of His own
pure grace; that importunity ever gains its point;
that everything depends on faith; that the largest faith
is ever most applauded and most blessed; that no
disease is beyond His power; that these and many
such things are true in these miracles of bodily healing,
then do we as surely know that we may rest confidently
upon them, when we go to Him in the deeper unworthi-
ness of sin, and with the more awful maladies of our
souls ! 2
1 Gen. iii. 16-19. 2 Matt. ix. 6, 35; Luke vii. 19-23.

BLIND BARTIMEUS.
I.
"And they came to Jericho; and as He went out of Jericho
with His disciples, and a great number of people, blind
Bartimeus, the son of Timeus, sat by the highway-side,
begging."
HAT a sad sight is this! A blind beggar
sitting by the way-side! His clothes are
tattered and filthy. His face is burned by
many a sun, and browned by many a rude
wind, and furrowed with many a wrinkle, making
channels for tears, and writing histories of sorrow.
His hand still grasps his long staff-his only support
and guide, as every morning he gropes his way from
his hovel to his accustomed haunt on this high road
to Jerusalem. He has taken his seat on the well-worn
stone under the palm-tree, and now he waits patiently
in the grateful shade for some passing traveller from
whom he may ask an alms; for on the chance pittance
of charity he must live. Unhappy man, if he has a
wife and children depending on this slender precarious
support! More unhappy, if he must bear his dark
life alone!

12
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
Is he man as God made him? Is that the divine
image? Is he possessor and lord of the world? Where
is the dignity and might, the kingly dominion and
grandeur of the earth's ancient ruler? Oh, how changed,
how fallen, how lost! Poor Bartimeus, sad picture of
all thy race! In thee I see myself and every brother
in our estate of nature. Image of the unregenerate
man-blind, poor, a beggar, and helpless alike in
wretchedness and ruin!
Shrink not, O believer, this is what thou wast
Shrink not, O unbeliever, this is what thou art.
Nay, the redeemed friends of Jesus will not shrink.
They have long been accustomed to gaze on this sad
likeness of themselves, and being now the children of
adoption through grace, they still gaze upon it to renew
repentance and humility, and to adore Him who has
changed it to joy and peace and eternal hope.
And let all in whom Jesus Christ hath wrought no
miracle of spiritual healing, look steadily on this pic-
ture, and hear the voice of God saying, Thou art the
man!1
I. HIS BLINDNESS.
Bartimeus is blind. And what is that? The eyes
of his body are out. He sees no light, or colour, or
form. I do not say his mind perceives nothing, or his
heart feels nothing. His wits may be keen and his
affections lively. I only say his bodily eyes cannot
see. They are blind.
And what is true of the eyes of his body, is true, O
sinner, of the eyes of your soul. He could not see the
1 2 Sam. xii. 7.
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
13
natural world, and you cannot see the spiritual world.
The eye of sense may be bright in you, and its vision
clear. The eye of the mind may be bright in you, and
its vision clear. But the eye of your soul has been put
out. It is blind.
You see I speak of three kinds of blindness. The
eye of the body may be but, and we have no name for
the result but blindness. The eye of the intellect may
be out, and we name the result idiocy. We say the
man is a fool. The eye of the soul may be out, and
God names the result wickedness. He calls the man
a sinner.
Think of Bartimeus. He rose this morning, and
his wife blessed him, his children climbed his knees
and kissed him. They ministered to his wants. They
led him a little way by the hand. But he did not see
them. He knew of them, but he could not behold
them. Their smiles or beauty were nothing to him—
he was blind.
Think of yourself, O sinner! You rose this morning,
and the eye of your heavenly Father looked upon you.
His hand led you, His power guarded you, His good-
ness blessed you. But your soul did not see Him. A
vague idea that God had done it all may have occurred
to you, but it had no vividness. He was no blessed
reality to you. You saw not the lineaments of a Father
-the loving eye, the benignant smile. You saw no-
thing-your soul was blind.
Think again of Bartimeus. He went abroad, and
the rich valley of the Jordan spread out before him.
The stately palms rose toward heaven, and waved their
14
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
feathery tops in the early breeze. The gardens of bal-
sam were clothed in their delicate spring¹ verdure, and
Jericho sat in the midst of these vernal glories, deserv-
ing its name Jericho, the place of fragrance, deserving
its frequent description among the ancient writers—
the City of Palms. And high above all was the blue
sky, bending over as if to embrace and bless so much
loveliness of earth; and the great sun, filling earth and
sky and balmy air with glory.
But what was all this to Bartimeus? It might have
been narrow and black for aught he could tell. It was
an utter blank, a dreadful gloom to him. All was
night, black, black night, with no star.
Why was it so to him, when to others it was splen-
dour and joy? Ah! he was blind.
Unregenerate man, think again of yourself. You
went abroad this morning, on an earth once cursed,2
as of old Jericho had been,³ but spared and blessed by
redeeming mercy, even as Jericho was that day blessed
by the presence and healing grace of Jesus. Around
you, too, was spread a world of spiritual beauty. The
walls, and bulwarks, and stately palaces of the city of
our God were before you. The rose of Sharon, the
lily of the valley, the vine, the palm, the olive, and the
fig-tree all stood about you in the garden of the Lord.
Through them flowed the river of life, reflecting skies
more high and clear than the azure of summer morn-
ings ever imaged, and lit to its measureless depth by a
For it was at this season that Christ was then going to
Jerusalem.
2 Gen. iii. 17, 18; Rom. viii. 20.
'Josh. vi. 17, 26.
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
15
sun more glorious than ever poured splendour even
upon Eden, in our poor world's ancient prime. You
walked forth amid all this beauty, and many saw it-
none perfectly, yet some very blessedly-but you saw
nothing. You see nothing now. Nay, you cannot
see it. Strain your blind soul as you will, you cannot
see it. What I have said of it seems to you but a
phantasy and rhapsody, although I say it on the awful
authority of God in His Holy Word, and the expe-
rience of unnumbered children of His, who are wit-
nesses that what I say is true, and for their witness
would dare to die. Why then do you not see it? Ah!
the eye of the soul is out-you are blind.
I see a beautiful mother gaze anxiously on her babe.
She is trying a fearful experiment. She stretches out
her arms to it, beseeches it with loving looks, holds out
sparkling jewels to it, and flashes them before its eyes
in the very sunshine at the open window. But the
little eyes move not, or move aimlessly, and turn
vacantly away. And she cries out in anguish, "Oh,
my poor child is blind!”
And now I understand why even tender children
turn away from Christ, seeing no beauty in Him that
they should desire Him, and caring nothing for all
His smiles or tears, or offers of the rich jewelry of
heaven. They see nothing of it all. They are blind,
born blind.
I have read of a man of old to whom God had given
great might, for dignity and honour and the redemption
of his enslaved country, who made unwieldy mirth for
1 Isaiah liii. 2.
16
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
|
thousands of scoffing Philistines. He had come from
grinding in their prison, where slaves were his masters,
and now he made sport in open day, while the uncir-
cumcised triumphed and jeered. But he saw neither
the dungeon nor the day, for they had put out his
eyes-Samson was blind.
And now I understand how men can make them-
selves the slaves and scoff of devils, as they rattle their
chains and dance in their fetters, and play the fool with
the high powers God has given them for usefulness to
their fellows, and their own glory, honour and im-
mortality. In the daily drudgeries of mere worldly
business, and the occasional levities of mere worldly
amusement, they are alike represented by fallen and
degraded Samson in his blindness.
I once saw a man walk along the edge of a precipice
as if it were a plain. For anything he knew, it was a
plain, and safe. He was calm and fearless, not be-
cause there was no danger, but because he was blind.
And who cannot now understand how men so wise,
so cautious in most things, can go so securely, so
carelessly, even so gaily on, as if everything were safe
for eternity, while snares and pitfalls are all about
them, and death may be just at hand, and the next
step may send them down the infinite abyss! Oh, we
see it, we see it—they are blind!
A blind man is more taken up with what he holds
in his hand, than with mountains, ocean, sun, or stars.
He feels this; but those he can neither touch nor see.
And now it is plain why unconverted men under-
value doctrine, saying, that "it is no matter what a
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
17
""
that "
one
man believes, so his heart is right;
doctrine is as good as another, and for that matter,
no doctrines are good for much;" and that "they
don't believe in doctrinal preaching at any rate."
They, forsooth, they! blind worms, pronouncing con-
temptuously of the stupendous heights and glories of
God's revelation, where alone we learn what we are to
believe concerning Him, and what duty He requires
of us.
It is plain, too, why they see no preciousness in the
promises, no glory in Christ, no beauty in holiness, no
grandeur in the work of redemption; why they make
a mock at sin, despise God's threatenings, brave His
wrath, make light of the blood of Christ, jest at death,
and rush headlong on certain perdition. They are
blind. So the Scripture speaks. There are blind
people that have eyes. Having the understanding
darkened, being alienated from the life of God, through
the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness
of their heart.2 So there is such a thing as heart blind-
ness, as well as blindness of the bodily eye.
1
"If these things are so,
Unconverted men often say,
if they are so clear and great, why cannot we see
them?" And there is no answer to be given but this,
Ye are blind.
"But we want to see them. If they are real, they are
our concern as well as yours. Oh, that some preacher
would come, who had power to make us see them!"
Poor souls, there is no such preacher, and you need
not wait for him. Let him gather God's light as he
1 Isa. xliii. 8.
Eph. iv. 18.
2
B
18
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
will, he can but pour it on blind eyes. A burning-
glass will condense sunbeams into a focus of bright-
ness; and if a blind eye be put there, not a whit will
it see, though it be consumed. Light is the remedy
for darkness, not blindness.
Neither will strong powers of understanding on your
part, serve. The great Earl of Chatham once went
with a pious friend to hear Mr Cecil. The sermon
was on the Spirit's agency in the hearts of believers.
As they were coming from church, the mighty states-
man confessed that he could not understand it at all,
and asked his friend if he supposed that any one in
the house could. "Why, yes," said he, "there were
many plain, unlettered women and some children.
there, who understood every word of it, and heard it
with joy."
Ah, hapless souls, ye complain against the gospel,
that it is hidden from you, as if that were its fault.
And now I must bring forth a dreadful scripture
which will open the mystery of your inability to under-
stand it. Oh, it is a fearful word, which ought to make
your ears tingle and your heart freeze with terror as
you hear it !—If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them
that are lost, in whom the god of this world hath
blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the
light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image.
of God, should shine unto them. The gospel is real
and glorious, and is all the while shining on in its own
divine splendour; but you are blind. Satan, the old
liar and murderer,² has blinded you lest you should
1 2 Cor. iv. 3, 4.
2 John viii. 44.
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
19
see this blessed gospel and be saved. And you are
lost, lost already. There is your dreadful condition,
and therefore you cannot see the gospel!
Let the people of God no more wonder then at the
clamours of infidels against the Scriptures. Would you
heed a blind man criticising pictures, or raving against
your summer skies? If he denies that the sun has
brightness, or the mountains grandeur, will you believe
him? And if a hundred blind men should all declare
that they cannot see the stars, and argue learnedly
that there can be no stars, and then grow witty and
laugh at you as star-gazers, would the midnight
heavens be less glorious to you? When these men
had thus satisfactorily demonstrated their blindness,
would not the mighty works of God still prove their
bright reality to your rejoicing vision? Would they
not still declare His glory and shew His handiwork? 1
And shall the spiritually blind be more trusted ?
Shall they be spiritual guides? No, the weakest
believer who has seen that the Lord is gracious, seen
any preciousness in the promises, any beauty in Christ,
any glory in the Scriptures, may cling to his faith,
despite the testimony and pretentious sophistries and
wit of ten thousand infidels. God has opened your
Єyes.
Satan has blinded theirs. Your testimony is
positive. Theirs is negative, and necessarily worth-
less. A lawyer told his client that two men would
swear that they had seen him commit the murder.
"Ah, but," said he, "I can bring fifty men who will
swear that they didn't see me commit it!" And that
2 Ps. xxxiv. 8.
1 Ps. xix. I.
20
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
poor villain, guilty, but merry with his own stupid
conceit, is a fair type of infidelity. It can bring men,
in great numbers, it must be owned, who will swear
right lustily, and with no little cursing, that they never
saw any beauty or glory in Christ or His gospel. And
when they have wrapped this, their whole testimony,
in the mists of an unintelligible philosophy, and played
off the machinery of an historical criticism, which can
prove with equal ease, and by the same process,¹ that
neither Jesus nor Bonaparte ever lived, so that man
has had no Redemption and the French no Revolu-
tion, and have then joined in a loud laugh at the
deluded "saints" who still prefer Paul to Mr Hume,
John to Mr Newman, and Jesus Christ to Dr Strauss,
then infidelity has but one thing more which it can do,
-change its voice, put on a new disguise, and begin
again.
If these men be followed, they will be found to be
blind leaders of the blind, and both will fall into the
ditch.2
II. HIS POVERTY.
See now a sad result of this blindness-deep poverty.
In this, too, is Bartimeus an image of every unrege-
nerate soul. Both are poor.
When may a man be called poor? Is wealth for the
body alone? Has the heart no riches? May not a
mind be impoverished, a soul be bankrupt? Ah! yes,
1 As Archbishop Whately has shewn in his "Historic
Doubts," etc.
2 Matt. xv. 14.
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
21
there are riches besides money, wealth to which gold
and rubies are as nothing.1
A man is poor when his need is not supplied. The
the
higher the wants, the deeper the kind of poverty;
more the wants, the deeper its degree. A man with
neither food nor shelter is poorer than he who lacks
shelter only. And is not the man without love or hope
poorer than he who has merely no fire nor bread?
Who shall deny the name of poor to him whose soul
is unfurnished? What is the chaff to the wheat,2 the
body to the soul? Are not the soul's desires larger
and more insatiable than those of the flesh? Does not
(6 a famine
the heart hunger? Is there no such thing as
of truth and love?" Do desolate spirits never cower
and shiver and freeze, like houseless wretches in stormy
winter nights? Night and winter and storm-are they
not also for the soul? And when it has no home in
its desolations, no refuge from its foes, no shelter from
the blast, no food for its hunger, no consolation in its
sorrows, is it not poor? poor in the deepest poverty,
which almost alone deserves the name of poverty ?3
How much of such poverty is there, dwelling in
princely halls, clothed in purple and fine linen, and
faring sumptuously every day! How often does it
walk in royal processions, and flash with jewels, and
handle uncounted gold! How much in the circles of
1 James ii. 5; Prov. viii. 10, 11; Job xxviii. 12-19.
2 Jer. xxiii. 28.
3 "That man only is poor in this world, who lives without
Jesus; and that man only is rich with whom Jesus delights
to dwell."-THOMAS A. KEMPIS.
22
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
wealthy "fashionable life," as it is called, by which
weak souls are so dazzled, and for which weak breasts
so ache! Fashionable life-with its suspicion and
envy and falsehood; its little meannesses and splendid
cheats; its magnificent desolations and gorgeous
misery! There is poverty indeed.
But let me not forget. It may also be sober and
industrious and plain, and have its pew in orthodox
churches. I see it before me. It has its likeness in
Bartimeus, but its dreadful reality, O sinner, in you!
I saw a man beginning a long journey. It was a
most perilous journey, through a wild, inhospitable
country. It did not seem so at first; a green and
flowery lane led from his dwelling. The road was
smooth, the day bright, friends near, the prospect fair.
He set gaily off in an easy carriage, attended by assi-
duous servants, and followed by waggons loaded with
all curious provision for present amusement or need.
Song and fragrance filled the morning air, and though
as the early hours flew by, these fled with them, still
his spirits were high, and the wheels rattled merrily
over the graded way. The smiles and congratulations
of friends saluted him as he passed, and some envied
him. He counted himself happy, and rejoicing in his
admirable appointments, gave up his heart to pleasure.
The evening of the first day has come, and lo! the
carriage is going down a hill. How steep it is getting!
Faster and faster it goes. The air darkens, the gloom
thickens, it grows cold; and faster, faster rolls the car-
riage downward. Nothing can check it. He tries, the
servants try. He shrieks for help, but in vain. Down-
BLIND BARTIMEUS
23
ward dash the horses. And see! at the bottom of the
hill, a river, dark, and without a bridge. The road
leads into it. In rush the horses, and with struggles
and groans and plunges of agony, all disappear.
But our traveller did not die in the stream. At the
other shore he came forth from the water, cold, deso-
late, alone. His servants were gone. His treasure
was gone. His amusements were gone. And on that
bleak shore, in that bitter clime, bound still for that
awful journey, I saw him standing, pale, weak, in help-
less despair. On, on he must go. He was hungry,
but he had no food; thirsty, but there was no water;
footsore, but he must walk. See, he totters, but he
has no staff; dangers assail him, but he has no de-
fence; remorse gnaws him, but he has now no resource.
An irresistible destiny urges him, and while the hunger
ever bites, and the way grows rougher, and horrors
thicken about him, on, on he must go.
Yet he knew all this from the first, but counted
it nothing. All his preparations were for the pleasant
road, through green and sunny fields. He seemed
rich then. Men called him so, all but one honest
soul, who frankly told him that his arrangements
were short-sighted, wretched, and that if he went
thus, his folly was as egregious as soon his poverty
would be dreadful. But he was called a rude man
for his pains, and bidden begone. Why should he
be ever disturbing the present joy with his doleful
prophecies? The very sight of him made one melan-
choly, and his voice seemed to toll out his warning,
like a dismal bell at a funeral. "Let us use the joys

24
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
we have, while we have them, and let the future take
care of itself!" So he spoke, and so he went; and
now there he is.
Nay, you need not tell me that my picture is
preposterous-that there is no such fool on earth.
I know how wise the children of this world are
in their generation,¹ and how unnatural all this
would be, if I meant the petty concerns of this life
alone. But suppose
I strip off the veil, and tell
you that eternity is that awful journey, and life that
pleasant lane, and the body that easy carriage in
which the soul sets out so gaily, and death that
bridgeless river, where friends can go no further,
and servants must forsake us, and all the treasure
of earth go down for ever? Where now is the
unnaturalness? Has it not become natural enough—
tame even from its very commonness? Thus, from
your own mouth I condemn you, and from the shock
you feel, when the whole scene is bounded by an inch
of time, convict you of unnutterable madness in pre-
paring for the little course of this life only, and going
all unfurnished for everlasting ages.
As I bid you, then, in God's name, beware, shall
I be driven away as too rough for your polite ears
and tender nerves? Shall I fear lest I describe the
coming terrors of your remorse, and shame, and utter
desolation, of your fiery, unappeasable thirst, and
eternal deep poverty, so graphically, that you shall
be really alarmed, and set to securing the true riches?
Must I measure my periods, and make mild words
1 Luke xvi. 8.
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
25
drop trippingly from my tongue, lest you should
believe me to be in earnest?
4
O souls, let me deal truly by God's Word, and
by you. Let me tell you that you are poor, miserably
poor, and in danger of eternal poverty. Poor? You
have no Almighty Comforter for your sorrows,¹ no
Infinite Redeemer for your sins,2 no Eternal God
for your portion. You have no solid peace in this
world, no well-grounded hope for another,5 no secu-
rity for one moment more out of hell. You are an
alien from God's people, a stranger from His cove-
nants of promise. You are without the only blood
which can pardon,8 the only Spirit who can purify,9
the only righteousness which can justify,10 without
title to heaven,11 without meetness for it,12 without
any hope of it, except a hope which is false and shall
fail you in the day of need.13 Ah, "you are without
Christ and have no God," 14 and that is poverty indeed,
unspeakable, intolerable!
Bartimeus' blindness caused his poverty; and your
blindness, that is, your sin, has caused yours. His
blind eyes could not see all his poverty, and your
blind souls cannot see yours. He could get rid of
poverty, only by getting rid of blindness; and it is
only by getting rid of sin, that you shall escape
being everlastingly poor.
¹ John xiv. 17.
4 Isa. xlviii. 22.
6 Matt. xii. 19, 20.
9
* John iii. 5, 6.
2 Acts iv. 12.
5 Job xi. 20;
7 Eph. ii. 12.
10 Job xxv. 4;
11 Rev. xxii. 14, 15.
13 Matt. vii. 21, 26, 27.
3 Matt. xxiv. 51.
Prov. xi. 7.
8 John iii. 18.
Rom. iii. 19-26.
12 Heb. xii. 14.
14 Eph. ii. 12.
26
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
III. HIS BEGGARY.
See now to what a sad strait this blind man's
malady has brought him-he is a beggar. Blindness
has made him poor, and poverty a beggar. In this,
too, he shews the woful estate of the sinner. Every
sinner is a beggar. How can it be otherwise? Can
such poverty be independent? In outward poverty,
a well-furnished mind, a wealthy soul may be an
inward solace. But when it is the soul that is
bankrupt, there is no region still within, where it
may retire and comfort itself. It will seek for happi-
ness, and it must look without-it is forced to beg.
You have seen a blind beggar in your streets. He
stands at the corner where the crowd hurries by.
He hears the confused hum of busy life—the cries
of the drivers, the earnest voices of men, the merry
laugh of children. How lively and happy they all
seem to him in his melancholy darkness; all happier
than he, the poor blind beggar! In one hand he
holds his long staff, while the other is reaching forth
for alms. His form is bent with weariness and age.
He often stands with his head uncovered, through
a deference which befits his lowly errand; and then
you may see that his hair is thin and white. His
meek face, and lips moving, but saying nothing, his
outstretched hand and sightless eyes turning this
way and that, as if they tried to see and could not
-these touch the heart and plead for him as no
words could do.
And thus I see poor, guilty, blinded souls begging
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
27
-begging of earth and sky, and air and sea, of
every passing event, of one another, of all but the
great and merciful God, who would supply all their
need through Jesus Christ.1 They must beg. The
vast desires of the soul, which God gave that they
might be filled from Himself, and which nothing but
His own fulness can satisfy; the noble powers de-
graded to work with trifles; the aspirations which
thrill only as they mount heavenward, but now
struggle and pant like an eagle with broken wing,
and his breast in the dust; the deathless conscience,
filled with guilt and touched with unappeasable wrath,
drugged, indeed, and often sleeping heavily, but wak-
ing surely, and then lashing the soul inexorably—
all these compel it to be a beggar. They constrain
it to cry out, with the lost fiend,
"Me, miserable! which way shall I fly?"
It is not yet conscious, indeed, of a "hell" within,
but its elements are there, and the uneasy burning
keeps it for ever restless.
The soul was made for good, and for good it will
ever cry. However debased and fallen, it still
hungers for good. It may be a diseased hunger
now; but it is not less ravenous for that. If it
cannot find food, it will devour offal.
In its ruin, the soul feels itself an exile and vaga-
bond. It is like a prince stolen away from his home
in early childhood, and ever retaining some dim re-
membrance of the glory of his ancient heritage.
1 Phil. iv. 19.
28
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
Amid its deep poverty the royal instinct sometimes
stirs within it, and it wanders weeping through the
world, in search of that Eden which is no longer
on earth.
"Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour,"
the impoverished soul looks for each new hour to
bring some good it has not yet. Disappointed each
night, it wakes each day to beg anew its daily bread.
"Who will shew me any good?"1 is its constant
cry, and hither and thither, to and fro over the face
of the earth, it wanders searching evermore for the
satisfaction which still it finds not.
De-
Begging begins in childhood. We beg then with
eager hope. We are sure we shall not be disappointed.
Games, holidays, sight-seeing, all promise much, and
childhood begs them to make it blessed. Vexed,
wearied, sent empty away again and again, the boy
sees, further on, the youth, pursuing his greater hopes,
and hastens to join him, confident that in higher ex-
citements and larger liberty, in new aspirations and
tenderer love, his soul's thirst shall be slaked.
luded once more, he grows sober and wise and firm.
He is older. He is a man. He lays deep plans now,
puts on a bolder face, and begs with sterner impor-
tunity. He can take no denial. He must have hap-
piness; he will be blessed. Fame, wealth, power-
these have the hidden treasure he has sought so long.
He knows now where it is, and they must give it up.
Years are passing, his time will soon be gone, and
1 Ps. iv. 6.
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
29
now he begs indeed! How these idols lead his soul
captive! How he toils, cringes, grovels, sacrifices for
their favour! Fame, wealth, power-deceitful gods!
--still promise that to-morrow the long-sought good
shall be given. But how many to-morrows come and
go, and leave him still trusting to the next! Now he
forsakes the pleasures he might have, dries up the
fountains of his early love, sweeps all sentiment from
his heart, crushes his dearest affections, tasks every
power to the utmost, wrings out his heart's blood, and
lays all his soul before his idol's feet-and is disap-
pointed! Disappointed alike in failure and success!
If he wins the prize, this is not what he coveted, and
worshipped, and bargained away his soul for, and he
curses it for a cheat. If he fails, he still believes that
the true good was there, and he was near it; and he
curses the chance, or envy, or hate which snatched it
from his grasp.
But who shall describe the base arts of this beggary?
The disguises, the pretences, the fawnings-all the low
tricks of street-beggars-are adopted and eclipsed by
those who will be rich, will be great, will have fame.
And what are the profits of thus begging the world
for what God alone can give?
Observe a street-beggar for a while. How many go
by and give nothing, where one drops even a penny in
the hat! So many of the passing things of time refuse
altogether to give the soul the good it asks.
See again. Do you mark the impudent leer of that
mean boy? He knows the beggar is blind, and so he
coines up pretending sympathy, and puts a pebble, a
30
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
chip, in that trembling hand. So a thousand times
have you seen the world do for a begging soul.
But there comes a still meaner boy; he puts that
which, when the grateful old man's hand closes on it
pierces or stings it, and, laughing loudly in the blind,
bewildered face, he runs away. And thus have I seen
the gay, polished world put a sparkling cup to the
young man's lips; but when at last it bit him like a
serpent and stung him like an adder, the polished
world jeered his imprudence, and turned him from its
door. His excesses and agony and death must not be
seen there!
And when the beggar's gains for the day are fairly
counted, what are they? A few copper coins, foul
with gangrene, and little bits of silver, rarely,—enough
to buy a scanty meal and a poor lodging, and to-
morrow all is to begin again. And thus the world
gives-few pleasures, low pleasures, brief pleasures.
They stay the soul's hunger for a while, but never
satisfy it, so that straightway we must go out and beg
again. The world never raised a man's soul above
beggary. It is both too selfish and too poor. It gives
but little of what it has, and if it gave all, gave itself,
that would not fill and bless an immortal soul.
These things make me think how sadly all this
begging from the world ends. The hour comes when
the world can do no more. It is a bitter hour-an
hour of pain and anguish, of weakness and despair-
the hour of death. The world is roaring away as ever,
in business and mirth, all unconscious that the poor
man who loved and worshipped it so, is dying. His
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
31
banqueting halls, where the world used to riot, are
shut. A strange guest came in, unasked, and few
cared to stay with him. The revelry hushed, the
splendour grew dark. He took the host by the hand,
astonished and speechless, and led him to his chamber,
and laid him on the bed, and whether others slept or
waked, he was a constant watcher-with those cold,
sleepless eyes! Not many may cross the threshold
now, and they tread lightly, and speak in whispers.
Even the blessed light of day may no more come in
freely at the windows. The gloom and solitude and
dreadful stillness of the grave are already closing
round him. His pillow smoothed again, another drop
of water, and the chill dews of the everlasting night
wiped once more from his brow-this is all the poor
man has to ask from the world. It is all the world
has to give.
But oh, the begging of God which now begins!
Bitter crying to Him whose gracious heart has been
waiting to bless these many years,¹ waiting in vain for
one sigh of contrition, one prayer of faith to His in-
finite grace! But it is too late. His patient, insulted
Spirit has been grieved at length.2 He has departed.
In anger He hath shut up His tender mercies. He
will be favourable no more. His mercy is clean gone
for ever.3 He gives no answer, and the soul, beggared
now eternally, goes into outer darkness, and begins
its blind, everlasting wanderings in the land of black-
ness and emptiness!
1 Matt. xxiii. 37.
3 Ps. lxxvii. 7-9.
4
2 Eph. iv. 30.
Matt. xxv. 30.

II.
"And hearing the multitude pass by, he asked what it
meant, and they told him that Jesus of Nazareth passeth
by."

B
LINDNESS, poverty, beggary! What woes
to be mingled in one cup! Who can mea-
sure the wretchedness of the man who is
ever drinking their still unexhausted bitter-
ness? Let us pity Bartimeus. But do not forget the
deeper sorrows of which these were but the shadow. I
see more miserable souls before me. I can weep over
Bartimeus, but when I look at many of you, I am
amazed that I ever cease to weep. What hardness
has seized my heart that I can think of you without
tears, or meet you without lamentation? The heavens
are astonished at your wretchedness and doom, and
why doth not horror take hold on my soul?1 Oh that
my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of
tears, that I might weep day and night for you,2 O ye
blinder blind, and poorer poor than Bartimeus!
Ah! if it were only the eye of the body that is out!
only the flesh that is clothed with rags! Yet that
would be dreadful. It was dreadful in visions of the
night, when deep sleep falleth on men. Then I
dreamed that Sabbath morning had come, and I stood
1
¹ Jer. ii. 12, 13; Ps. cxix. 53. 2 Jer. ix. 1.
3
Job iv. 13.
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
33
in my pulpit to preach; when suddenly I saw paleness
gathering on all faces; for God was wrapping you in
His cloud and thick darkness, and I stood alone
among a congregation of the blind. Then a change
passed over your bright raiment, and it became rags-
the coarse rags of beggars. All bloom fled from every
cheek, and every form was shrivelled and bent. A
horrible old age had come even on the faces of little
children. Ah! what a scene it was! Some of you
groped your fearful way in the dark. Some shrieked
in frenzy. Some stretched your bony hands and
turned your hunger-bitten faces toward heaven, and
with eyes that wept their own blindness, cried in
anguish for light; while some sat still, petrified with
horror. Yet I knew you all as before. I looked down
on the same dear faces, wretched now, and ghastly,
the same gentle eyes through which loving souls had
so often looked in kindness on me,-now distorted
and wild, and "rolling in vain to find the day."
When grief and astonishment would let me, I tried
to speak, but none heard me. I called aloud, but
screams, and sobs, and deep-drawn sighs, and curses
muttered through gnashing teeth, drowned my voice.
When lo! amid the great bitterness and struggle of
my soul, I heard the voice of God saying unto me,
"Weep not, nor be dismayed for this; but weep for
souls that see not, and hearts that are blind. Weep
for the desolations of sin, of which I have now shewn
thee a little, lest I visit the people in mine anger, and
there be no remedy; lest I smite them in my wrath,
and their blindness be everlasting. Weep for them."
C
34
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
The awful voice had made a great silence, and now
again it spoke, and said to you, with a benignant
sweetness which melted your hearts and poured sun-
beams on your darkness, "O ye wretched, and miser-
able, and poor, and blind, and naked; I counsel you
to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that ye may be
rich; and white raiment that ye may be clothed,
and that the shame of your nakedness do not appear;
and anoint your eyes with eye-salve that ye may
see!" 1
Will you not weep for yourselves, ye blind souls?
Will you not believe God's testimony declaring your
ruin and proclaiming a remedy? Will you not taste
and see that the Lord is gracious? 2 Will you not
follow on to know the Lord 3 as He reveals His loving-
kindness, in this story, in which human misery and
Divine mercy so strangly meet, and mercy so bless-
edly triumphs? Consent to begin in the depths
with Bartimeus, and one day you shall stand on the
heights with him, praising his God and yours with
irrepressible rejoicing.
But, poor man! his song is not yet. He still sits
by the highway, as unconscious as the dead of the
blessing which even now slowly draws near, and
soon shall pour around and through him its streams
of earthly and heavenly light.
There he sits in his dreary darkness, while fron
the Throne an Eye of pity is looking down upon him,
and from the gates of heaven loving angels are pour-
ing forth, to behold a new triumph of the power and
1 Rev. iii. 18. • Ps. xxiv. 8.
& Hos. vi. 3.
4 Heb. i. 14.
4
3
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
35
grace of their Lord,¹ and welcome a new companion
to their everlasting joy,² and that Lord himself is
coming nearer, nearer, with His heart yearning for its
gracious overflow. That celestial virtue, which dwelt
in unmeasured fulness in Him, and poured out so
freely that, if faith's finger touched even the hem of
His garment, its liberal streams emptied themselves
till all human need was filled 3-that virtue was even
now springing up from the deep wells of His Deity
and thrilling His human heart with secret joy.
And is it not always so? Does not God always
begin with man? What has man, except his miseries,
to attract anything in God? And what can these
attract but grace-pure grace coming in place of
deserved wrath? And when even this comes, it finds
no welcome or congenial home. "The grace of God
in the heart of man," says Leighton, “is a tender
plant in a strange, unkindly soil." Both the seed
and the sunshine, then, must come from heaven. To
him that hath, indeed, shall be given, but then what
have we that we did not receive? Every good gift
is from above. Have we repentance? Him hath
God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and
Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgive-
ness of sins. Pardon is no more the gift of Christ
than the repentance that leads to it. Have we faith?
It is the gift of God. Jesus is its Author as well as
love Him because
Finisher.9 Have we love ?
Have we love? We
2 Luke xv. 10.
4
9 Luke viii. 43-48.
11 Peter i. 12.
• Luke xix. 26.
5
↑ Acts v. 31.
I Cor. iv. 7.
8 Eph. i. 8.
6 James i. 17.
• Heb. xii. 2.
36
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
He first loved us.¹ Love, joy, peace; long-suffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, are
all the fruit of the Spirit; 2 while if you would see
what fruit springs of itself from the vine of nature,
you may read just before,³ where Paul counts over
seventeen bitter, deadly clusters, and then, weary of
the dreadful count, adds, "and such like." When God
begins to deal graciously with us, passing by us in pity,
and looking on us in love, to make us His in ever-
lasting espousals, we are described under the image
of a miserable infant, born in an accursed land and
of accursed parents, and cast out immediately, un-
pitied, into the open field, exposed, helpless, bleeding,
polluted, to die! 4 And in many other scriptures we
are declared to be by nature dead in trespasses and
sins, lying in wickedness, children of wrath, having
minds which are enmity against God, of our father the
devil. And if the likeness, corruption, and curse of
hell are not ours for ever, the change from first to
last is of God. "Men find a thing lovely, and love it;
God loves a thing, and thereby makes it lovely."
"6
In this case, it is indeed brought to pass that the
first word shall come from Bartimeus. But Christ,
who is coming near on purpose to bless him, has, by
His providence, arranged it that he shall be sitting
there as He is to pass by, that he should have some
previous knowledge of Jesus of Nazareth and His
1 1 John iv. 19.
8 Gal. v. 19-21.
2 Gal. v. 22, 23.
4 Ezek. xvi.
5 Eph. ii. 1; 1 John v. 19; Eph. ii. 3; Rom. viii. 7; John
viii. 44.
6 Jenkyn on Jude.
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
37
power to heal, that His curiosity shall be awakened
and his desires excited, while through His grace alone
he has faith to call Him Lord and trust his cure to His
power and compassion.1
There he sits hoping for mere worldly gain. He has
not come to meet Christ. It was not in all his thoughts
to get his eyes opened.
How many like him are before me-dying sinners
on whom God's curse is resting, who yet did not come
to secure the great salvation. You have gathered in
the place of mercy, but not as fugitives from the wrath
that is pursuing you. You knew that Christ was
preached here in every sermon, but you did not come
to meet Him. How many of this perishing multitude
came for no higher reason than that others were com-
ing, and you knew not well what else to be doing
meantime, or you thought it decent to come, or you
like to hear sermons! For these and such reasons
you have dared to seat yourselves in the house of God,
and come under the tremendous responsibilities of
hearers of the gospel! To stroll through sacred places,
careless spectators of the crucifixion; indifferent
lookers-on while God comes down in tempest and
blackness on Mount Sinai, to give His dreadful Law!
God grant a further parallel; that you may get what
you did not come for, even a solemn meeting and
saving closing of your souls with Jesus Christ.
There sits the blind man, when a faint sound catches
his quick ear. He listens, and perceives a noise of
many footsteps, a murmur of many voices, confused
1 1 Cor. xii. 3; Eph. ii. 8.
38
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
and distant. On they come, and hope rises high in
his breast. To-day shall be a harvest to him. It is
rare that so many pass at once, and now will he be
diligent. On they come, and louder grows the sound
of steps, the swell of voices. Wonder mingles with
his hope-wonder what all this means, for now they
are near, and plainly it is a great multitude.
A multitude with Jesus! a multitude of followers!
How can he then complain, I have laboured in vain,
I have spent my strength for nought? Simply because
He had many followers, but few friends; many from
curiosity, many for loaves, many for fashion, but few
from faith, few from love. And so it has been ever
since.
But it is not all following
A multitude with Jesus!
that blesses. Judas followed Him daily, but remained
to the end the thief and devil he was from the begin-
ning.2 Once the people not only followed but thronged
Him; but only one was healed, and she touched but
the hem of His garment. They pressed upon Him,
but hers was the only touch of faith. Mere outward
connexion with Christ did no man any good. And so
it has been ever since.
A multitude with Jesus! Yes, when His march is
at all triumphal,-when as He goes He invests Hist
progress with the splendour of miracles, there will be
no want of a crowd to gape after Him. But though
He fed as well as dazzled them yesterday, a little hard
doctrine preached to-day thins them with a witness.
2 John vi. 70; Matt. xxvi. 24; xxvii. 5.
1 Isa. xlix. 4.
Mark v. 27, 31, 34.
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
39
No man, said Jesus, can come unto me, except it were
given unto him of my Father. From that time many
of His disciples went back and walked no more with
Him.1 And so it has been ever since.
A multitude with Jesus! Take care, then, ye mem-
bers of the Church. Examine yourselves closely. Pro-
fession of religion is easy now.
Numbers give power,
respectability, fashion, even enthusiasm. See! They
spread their costly raiment in His path. They pave
His way with purple. The thunder of their hosannahs
goes up to heaven.2 But to-morrow He is alone, and
the multitude grow hoarse with hooting and cursing
Him.3 So little was the applause of the multitude
worth; so little did popularity test principle in the
days of Jesus. And so it has been ever since.
6
4
A multitude with Jesus! Blessed be God, in that
multitude some true disciples may be found; some
who, though weak and sinning,-forward, like Peter,
when they should be backward, and then backward,
of course, when they should be forward;5 ambitious,
like Zebedee's children, or doubting, like Thomas,7
are still true friends of Jesus, living for Him, suffering
for Him, growing like Him day by day, and dying for
Him without a murmur, if He so appoint. Always re-
member that Jesus Christ has never been left without
true followers. Among the professed people of God
there have always been real people of God. So it was
in the days of Christ. And so it has been ever since.
1 John vi. 65, 66.
3 Luke xxiii. 18, 21, 23.
2 Matt. xxi. 8, 9.
4 Matt. xvi. 22.
5 Matt. xxvi. 58. 6 Matt. xx. 20–24. 7 John xx. 25.
40
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
"And hearing the multitude." Oh, what a blessing is
that! His ears are open though his eyes are shut.
Thus God remembers to be gracious. Where He
takes one mercy He leaves another. He never takes
all until the cup of iniquity is full,¹ and then wrath
comes to the uttermost and shivers it.2 He leaves
even the heathen without excuse, for they may know
His eternal power and Godhead from the works of
creation.3 And no sinner need flatter himself that
because the Bible calls him blind or dead, he shall
therefore escape duty or condemnation. The same
epistle which pronounces sinners dead in trespasses &
and sins, shouts in their ears, Awake, thou that sleep-
est, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee
light!4
Yes, sinners, you are blind; you cannot see spiritual
beauty or glory. But you can "hear" of them, and
know that you must see them or perish.
"But I cannot open my eyes. So you have told me
again and again. You say I am helpless."
You are indeed; but it remains nevertheless true
that you must see or perish.
"Is not this a hard case? Is not such preaching
mockery? I cannot open my eyes."
True, true, and the more's the pity. It is a hard case.
For the constitution of heaven will not be changed
by your helplessness. Christ tells us that none are
blessed but they who see God, and that only the pure
in heart shall see Him.5 But your heart is foul with
1 Gen. xv. 16. 21 Thess. ii.
4 Eph. ii. I; v 14.
16.
3 Rom. i. 20, 32; ii. 14, 15.
5 Matt. v. 8.
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
41
So that you
sin, which God hates, and its foulness has blinded your
eyes and brought you under His curse.
are indeed in helpless blindness.
see or perish.
And yet you must
If I am helpless,
"But why preach this to me?
why urge me with impossible duties and vain responsi-
bilities?"
Because it is true that you are helpless, and true
that you must see or perish. Both are awful truths
of God's Word, and it greatly concerns you to know
them. I see, indeed, that you would silence me by
this logic. You think that in pleading your inability,
you have an argument that will excuse you from the
duties you hate. Very well; suppose you do silence
me. God will still call to you, Repent or perish,¹
Believe or be damned! 2 And if you do excuse your-
self from these hateful duties, do you know that you
will also excuse yourself from salvation? You need
not see, you need not believe. God will not compel
your vision or your faith. But He will compel you to
believe or be damned, to see or be lost. So all your
logic has done for you is to shut you out of heaven.
But perhaps you do not believe that you are helpless.
Then prove your power by opening your eyes. Try
it. See, if you can. Look around on the regions of
spiritual beauty. Delight yourself with the saints'
blessedness. God's light and love are pouring all
around you, and they will pour into you, if you can
but open your eyes. There, have you done it?
Do they fill you with light? Bathe your soul with
:
1 Luke xiii. 3, 5.
•
2 Mark xvi. 16.
42
BLIND BARTIMEUS:
wonder and bliss? Ah! have you failed? Are you
still blind? Is all dark? Is your heart still cold and
hard? Alas, then you are helpless, and may never
see! Yet if you do not see you must perish!
"Ah, me! what then shall I do?”
What are you indeed convinced that you have no
power to open your eyes? And yet that you must see
or perish?
"Yes, alas! I feel my utter helplessness, while the
Law of God is urging me with its heavy requirements.
I know I can have no heaven but in the vision of God
reconciled, and smiling on me. Oh, that would indeed
be heaven! But I do not, cannot see Him. I am
blind, and can do nothing. O wretched man that I
am! who shall deliver me?" 1
Now, sinner, you find the use of preaching your
helplessness and your duty together. The merciless
dilemma has met you at either hand, and shut you up
to the faith of the gospel.2 You have learned to de-
spair of your own strength, and cry out for a deliverer.
Then you were in no haste to obey God, for what you
could do at any time, why should you not choose your
own time for? You would wait for a convenient
season. But now that shield of vain confidence is
cast away, and your naked heart bared to every arrow
from the quiver of God. You lie helpless before a
Sovereign God, justly condemned, and hopelessly lost,
unless He save you. And now I may tell you what to
do.
Do what Bartimeus did. Hear the truth, bear the
2 Gal. iii. 23.
1 Rom. vii. 24.
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
43
truth, believe the truth. Settle it for ever in your
heart that if you do not see your infinite need of a
Saviour, and Christ's infinite fitness to be your Saviour,
you are lost. Then cry to Jesus Christ to open your
eyes. Salvation is by faith,¹ and faith is by hearing,2
and you have hearing, you do hear-hear that you are
blind, and the wrath of God is on you,³ and the ven-
geance of hell awaits you, and none but Jesus Christ
can save you, and He can! You hear that, and I
pray you make speedy use of it, or that will be taken
away, with every other sense and power, and this death
in sin will deepen into death in hell-death in blindness
and despair for ever!
-5
4
6
I have seen Laura Bridgman, whom God sent into
this world without sight, hearing, or the power of
speech. She could see nothing, hear nothing, ask
nothing. To her the very thunder has ever been
silence, and the sun blackness. The tips of her fingers
and the palms of her hands have been her eyes and
ears and tongue. Yet that poor sickly girl knows much
of the earth and language and numbers; of human
relationships and passions; of what is, has been, shall
be, should be; of sin and death and hell; of God and
Christ and Heaven. And all this has gone through
the poor child's slender fingers, darkly feeling the
fingers of another; and thus she tells her hopes and
fears and sorrows. And if she, groping so blindly for
the Saviour, finds Him, and rests her weak hands on
His lowly Head,-that blessed Head which bows lowly
1
¹ Eph. ii. 8.
Matt. xxv. 41.
2 Rom. x. 17.
5 Acts iv. 12.
3
³ John iii. 36.
6 I Tim. i. 15.
44
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
enough even for this,-Oh, how will she rise up in judg-
ment,¹ and condemn, with utter overwhelming, you, O
sinners, upon whose souls every sense is pouring the
knowledge of God, while your eyes read His Holy
Word, and your ears hear, a thousand times over,
these tidings of great joy,-even the glorious gospel
of the blessed God! 2
Hearing the multitude pass by, he asked what it
meant." So this inarticulate preaching of the passing
multitude arrested the attention of the blind man, and
awakened his curiosity, and set him to inquiring the
meaning of these things. "Hearing, he asked." Yes,
yes, that is the true progression. If there is a move-
ment in the Church, if a new impulse is given to the
power of godliness, if Christ walks amidst His people,³
even though false professors gather with them; if the
tread of Zion on the earth is like the tread of an army
with banners, then will a blind, ungodly world be
arrested from its hungry, clamorous quest after mere
earthly gain. It will consider and wonder and in-
quire. If the Church, if you, my brethren, will cease
to wander or dance or drudge wherever the world
does; if you will be awake and up, and gather nearer
to Christ, and thus nearer to each other; if you will
move onward with Christ, then men will look up. Old
Avarice will drop his muck-rake, and Ambition forget
to chase his bubble, and on the highway or byway, in
court and cap and on 'change, men will pause and
look; and the movements of a spiritual Church will
1 Matt. xii. 41, 42.
3 Rev. ii. I.
2 1 Tim. i. 11.
4
* Song vi. 10.
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
45
make them wonder, and they will inquire (while no
little awe is creeping over their hearts), What do these
things mean? Where are these men going? Why
do they seem like strangers and pilgrims, with their
loins girded and their faces set toward some far-off
country?¹ Why are they so earnest? Why do they
seem to walk above the world,2 while yet they scatter
ten thousand sweet charities as they pass? What
means their strange speech like an unearthly har-
mony? Why do they sing in the way³ brave songs of
glory, even when the cloud wraps them, and the driv-
ing storm beats them with its hail?
If Zion thus moved on with her King in the midst
of her, how would the thunder of her triumph shake
the earth! Ah, brethren, if you, just you, thus moved
on under the Captain of your salvation, how would
this city be stirred! Your life would then be preach-
ing all over the town-in every street and lane, and it
would be preaching which would crowd this house con-
tinually with anxious inquirers. In my heart I believe
it; every seat and standing-place would be filled, and
the place be speedily too strait for us,5 and that
cheering cry be heard again among us, Let us rise
up and build. Then would these courts be still and
awful. Believers would find it hard to be absent.
Pious affections, deep adorations, importunate desires
would fill their hearts and go up to heaven. With
what power would they sing! With what fervour
1 Heb. xi. 13; Luke xii. 35; Jer. 1. 5.
3 Ps. cxxxviii. 5. • Zech. iii. 15, 17.
Neh. ii. 18.
2 Prov. xv. 24.
5 Isa. xlix. 20.
46
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
would they pray! With what holy relish would they
eat the simple food of the gospel! And how would
the unpardoned hang with painful anxiety on the
words of life! How simple and easy would preaching
then be yet savouring so preciously of life everlasting
through Christ crucified.
Shall I describe a sermon which would refresh the
people of God, and be as arrows in the hearts of His
enemies,¹ till they became willing captives of Christ? 2
My text shall be my guide. The road-side was the
church, the multitude preached, and Bartimeus was
the hearer. And now for the sermon-"“And they
told him, Jesus of Nazareth passeth by." "Jesus of
Nazareth passeth by!" That is the whole of it,
and I think it a very good one, when we consider
the occasion. At any rate it enchained the whole
mind and heart of Bartimeus. It went down into his
soul like a beam of light, and filled him with amaze-
ment and joy. It was the strangest, gladdest word
he had ever heard. "Jesus of Nazareth-the Saviour
-He who openeth the eyes of the blind! Is He
here so near me-where I may speak to Him? Oh!
has the day come at last, when my eyes shall be
opened? When I shall see, shall see, and be no
more a beggar? Oh! can such news be true?"
So you see it was a powerful sermon. It went to
the heart and took complete possession of it. I am
quite sure Bartimeus was not a captious critic of that
sermon. He had no time to think whether it was
uttered fast or slowly, loudly or gently. But what
1 Ps. xlv. 5.
2 Ps. cx. 3.
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
47
made it so powerful? "Jesus of Nazareth passeth
by." That is all of it. I am afraid many of us
would think very little of such a sermon. But Barti-
meus felt his blindness and his need of Christ. There
is the difference. The power of the sermon was in
the state of the hearer's heart. A sermon often seems
poor because we are cold. There is a difference in
sermons, no doubt. But I read that men could go
to sleep while Paul preached,¹ and even the wise
men of Athens called him a babbler and mocked,2
while the most noble Festus, who was a gentleman in
high life, and should have known better, interrupted
him in the midst of his sermon, and pronounced him
"mad," ³—crazy, as we would say. If sinners and
saints felt their needs more-if they oftener came
from secret devotions, the simplest things we could
say of Christ would be like bread to the hungry and
cold waters to the thirsty soul.4
It was a very simple sermon. Who cannot preach
it? "Jesus of Nazareth passeth_by." There is no
follower of Jesus who cannot tell poor blind souls
this. Yet this is the message which is to save the
world. The Bible tells it over in a thousand forms.
Fill your hearts with them, and go, tell the glad
tidings to lost sinners everywhere. I thank God that
the gospel is so simple that the whole multitude of
Christ's followers can preach it.
And so must the preaching from the pulpit be
simple. We must say many things that our hearers
2 Acts xvii. 18, 32.
1 Acts xx. 9.
3 Acts xxvi. 24.
• Prov, xxv. 25.
48
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
already know. A good preacher tries to make all
truth simple. He is a bad shepherd, say the old
writers, who holds the hay too high for the sheep.
According to Lord Bacon, little minds love to inflate
plain things into marvels, while great minds love to
reduce marvels to plain things.
((
"The very essence of truth," says Milton, "is plain-
ness and brightness; the darkness and crookedness
are our own."1 'Better the grammarian should re-
prehend," says Jenkyn, "than the people not under-
stand. Pithy plainness is the beauty of preaching.
What good doth a golden key that opens not ?" 2 An
old lady once walked a great way to hear the celebrated
Adam Clarke preach. She had heard he was "such a
scholar,” as indeed he was. But she was bitterly dis-
appointed, “because,” said she, “I understood every-
thing he said." And I knew a man who left the church
one morning quite indignant, because the preacher
had one thing in his sermon he knew before! It was
a little explanation meant for the children; dear little
things-they are always coming on, and I love to see
their bright little faces among the older people. We
used to need and prize these simple explanations, and
why shouldn't they have them in their turn? And this
blessed thing is to be said of the gospel: Let it be
made ever so simple, so that little children are drink-
ing it in with grateful wonder, it still has depths and
riches to satisfy the mind and heart of the mightiest
philosopher, if only he has that highest attainment of
¹ Reformation in England. Book First.
2 Exposition upon Jude.
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
49
wisdom-a simple, child-like faith. Like the sun, it is
mirrored at the same moment by the dew-drop and the
ocean,
But best of all, this sermon was about Christ. He is
mentioned alone. When Bartimeus asked "what it
meant," these preachers did not answer, "We are pass-
ing by." Yet their movements arrested him; he heard
them. But when he asked what the multitude meant,
they told him, "Jesus of Nazareth passeth by." It is a
happy thing when the Church can say of all its great
movements and excitements, "Jesus is passing by."
This is a test of revivals, a test of all right Christian
effort-"Jesus passeth by." This is the test, too, of a
good sermon. "The excellency of a sermon," says
Flavel, “lies in the plainest discoveries and liveliest
applications of Jesus Christ.”
They announce that Jesus is near. What blessed
tidings to Bartimeus! In this you all agree: it was
a great thing for him to have his eyes opened. From
these far-off ages your sympathies run back and mingle
with his agitation of joy. To have the eyes opened-
to see for the first time! The rapture must be inde-
scribable.
And when I announce the nearness of Jesus, now
' and here, to you, O sinner, why is not the news joyful?
Was it much that those eyes should be opened upon a
world darkened by the curse, and stained by the shadow
of death, and furrowed so roughly with graves? eyes
often to be dimmed with tears and soon with age?
eyes whose brief light death should soon quench with
the clods of the valley, and leave their hollow sockets
D
50
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
to be nests for worms? Yes, yes, I confess it, even
this was much. But oh! tell me, in your turn, is it
nothing to you that Jesus is again near, and that your
eyes may this day be opened to the light of the Cross?
light fairer than the moon, clearer than the sun, and
making earth radiant with the glories of heaven? light
which often streams brightest in death, gilding even
the dark valley? light of the everlasting Throne, on
which, with saints and angels, you may gaze for ever?
And is it tidings of this light alone which cannot
agitate? Is it only eternal salvation that is a trifle?
Is it only because the offered blessedness is absolutely
immeasurable and everlasting that it is not worth your
thought or care?
Miserable souls! so blind that you do not know
your blindness, so blind that you do not believe it,
though God declares it, my business now is to tell you
that Jesus Christ is near,-He passeth by! Now is
your time; make haste to secure your salvation. How
near He is! He passeth by in the light of every
Sabbath sun, in every church built to His Name,
in every reading of His Word, in every gospel sermon,
in sacraments and prayers and psalms, but most of all
in every movement of His Spirit on the heart. If you
feel under the truth, if your conscience confirms what
God declares, if you have been made even uneasy in
your sin, if like Felix you have trembled,¹ or like
Agrippa have been almost persuaded to be a Chris-
tian,2 oh, let me tell you that I did not work any of
these things in your heart. Who am I, that I can put
1 Acts xxiv. 25.
2 Acts xxvi. 28.
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
51
a pulse in the heart of death ?1 They are not my
work, and I dare not claim the glory of them.2 God's
Spirit has been stirring in your heart, striving with you
for your eternal salvation! What an awfulness does
that give to these services! Jesus, God manifest in
the flesh,³ is here, by His gracious Spirit. He fills
every ordinance.5 He moves from heart to heart.
You are in His tremendous presence, under His
omniscient eye, in the grasp of His infinite power, in
the gracious sphere of His healing love.
4
8
But He "passeth by!" He will not always tarry.®
The day of grace is not for ever. Its sun will go
down, and the night that follows is eternal despair.
Christ never passed that way again; He may never
pass your way again. That was His last visit to
Jericho; this call may be His last visit to you. This
was Bartimeus' only opportunity; to-day may be your
only opportunity.9 Woe, woe, to Bartimeus, if he lose
this golden season! If he does he shall die in his
blindness. Woe, a heavier woe to you, O sinner, if
you slight this, your golden season, for securing this
great salvation! 10 This moment may decide your
doom. Fly to Jesus Christ!
1 2 Kings v. 6.
John xvi. 7, 8.
• Gen. vi. 3.
8 2 Cor. vi. 2.
2 Ps. cxv. I.
• Matt. xviii. 20.
8
* John viii. 21, 24;
10 Heb. ii. 3.
8 1 Tim. iii. 16.
6
John xii. 35, 36.
Luke xix. 42.

RE
III.
"And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he be-
gan to cry out and say, Jesus, thou Son of David, have
mercy on me !"

W
E left Bartimeus listening to his first gospel
sermon. The preachers seem to have done
their part well. At any rate their message
was good. It was simple, straight-forward,
and altogether about Jesus Christ.
We do not know how they spoke. It would be
pleasant, for their sakes, to know that they shewed a
proper sympathy with the precious words they were
saying, and with the poor man who heard them. But
if we cannot tell this, we know what concerns us far
more, that they told him the very thing he needed.
However rude in speech, they have let him know that
the Healer of the blind is near; and I am sure that
nothing they could say about anything else could
make up for not telling him that. The most eloquent
harangue on the politics of the times-though Pilate
and Herod and Cæsar, and Roman eagles and Jewish
banners, and liberty and nationality and destiny had
rolled with splendid imagery through sounding periods
—would have been a sad exchange for those simple
words,-"Jesus of Nazareth passseth by." Nor would
Aristotle's keenest logic, nor Plato's finest speculations
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
53
have served a whit better. The man was blind, and
wanted his eyes opened; and till this was done, these
things, however set forth, were but trash and mockery.
Mockery? Are not the preachers of God's Word
stewards in Christ's House?1 And has He not made
ready to our hands boundless stores for perishing
sinners, and bidden us give as freely as we have re-
ceived?2 And when hungry souls come at our call to
the gospel feast and wait to be fed, if we give them
dry husks of philosophy for the "strong meat" of
doctrine, the "stone" of hard metaphysics for the living
bread of God's saving truth, and the "scorpion" of
envenomed political fanaticism for the sincere milk of
the Word, clusters from Eshcol, water from the River
of Life, wine of gladness, and manna still wet with the
dews with which it came down from heaven,3-is it
not bitterest mockery of the deepest sorrows and basest
treachery to the highest trusts?
Nay, if these preachers told their glad tidings in
an unfeeling way, it was a great wrong, a wrong to
themselves and Bartimeus and such blessed truth, but
still a wrong immeasurably less than not to have told
such truth, in whatever way.
But if the preacher's responsibility is so dreadful,
I pray you, has the hearer no responsibility? If these
men tell Bartimeus that Jesus passeth by, though in
a way having what faults you please, will he not be
the most besotted of fools, if he turns from this
2 Matt. x. 8.
11 Cor. iv. 1, 2; 1 Pet. iv. 10.
Heb. v. 14; Luke xi. 11, 12; 1 Pet. ii. 2; Numb. xiii.
23; Rev. xxii. 1; Numb. xi. 9.
54
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
glorious opportunity, and gropes his way back to his
hovel, to sit down there in poverty and darkness, and
sneer or laugh or be angry at these failures in manner
or spirit? These things concern them, and they must
answer for them to God, but what concerns him but that
he is blind, and now "Jesus of Nazareth passeth by?"
Take heed, therefore, how you hear,¹ is the warning
of Christ. Oh, there is much in that! If we must
take heed to our preaching, you must take heed to
your hearing. If an awful account must be given
from the pulpit, one hardly less awful must be given
from the pew. If it is no light thing to preach the
gospel, you will find that it is no light thing to hear
the gospel. Eternal salvation depends on right hear-
ing. There are just two kinds of hearing, not three.
There is a hearing unto life, and another hearing
unto death; but there is no hearing between-none
to indifference. You may try to hear merely that
you may hear, and let that be the end of it—but that
will not be the end of it. The end of it will be life
or death! You may resolve that the preaching shall
make no difference in you; but it will make a dif
ference in you, and the difference will be salvation
or perdition! The gospel leaves no man where it
found him. If it be not wings to bear him to
heaven, it will be a mill-stone to sink him to hell.
Some of you think it the lightest of pastimes to come
to church and hear a sermon. I warn you that this
is a fearful mistake. I will speak to you in the words
of God: We are ambassadors for Christ, as though
1 Luke viii. 18.
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
55
God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's
stead, be ye reconciled to God.1 We are unto God
a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved
and in them that perish: to the one we
are the
savour of death unto death; and to the other the
savour of life unto life.2 If our gospel be hid, it is
hid to them that are lost.3 This is true always.
It is true to-day-of this sermon. As God is true,
this process is now going on in every hearer. Each
one of you is this moment fitting either for blessedness
with God, or for His wrath in hell; for which, depends
on one thing alone-how you are now hearing. Take
heed then, and that you may do this the more intelli-
gently, see further how Bartimeus heard. I think we
shall find most of the marks of a good hearer in him,
and I shall notice none other.
I. His hearing led him to action. His very soul
seemed to be roused, and he began to do something.
In contrast with this, we see the great fault of
gospel hearers in this day. It is not that you are
not polite and attentive hearers. Your orderly sitting
and solemn listening are even beyond our expectation.
When Paul and Stephen and Christ preached, the
people often made a tumult. They mocked; they
sneered; they cried out and threw dust into the air.
They were ready to beat and kill them.4 You do
none of these things. I often wonder you do not.
It sometimes makes me fear I have not dealt faith-
fully with you. Yet I try to preach as plainly as
$ 2 Cor. iv. 3.
1
2 Cor. v. 20.
2 2 Cor. ii. 15, 16.
4
John viii. 59; Acts xxii. 22, 23, &c.
56
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
they did. I take their very words, and in the name
of God speak them boldly to you. I do not abate
one jot of their terrible energy and point. Yea, I
take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word
of God,¹ and with unsparing hand lay open your
hearts. I repeat the tremendous descriptions which
God has given of them; I apply the dreadful names
by which He has called you; I sound aloud the
threats of His wrath; I strive in every way to make
you feel that I am personal-that I mean you-every
unregenerate soul; and for these things in Christ's
day, they would have gnashed on me with their teeth
and hurled me out of the city; while you listen so
calmly, so complacently, that I cannot tell saint from
sinner; the men against whom God's curses are
thundered, from those to whom His eternal blessing
is sealed; the men, who through sovereign grace are
washed, who are sanctified, who are justified in the name
of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God,2 from
those who are lying in wickedness,³ the enemies of
the cross of Christ, condemned already,5 and in in-
stant danger of the vengeance of eternal fire! 6
4
Is it not a marvel? What ails you, O man, that
nothing can rouse you-if not to feel right, at least to
feel at all? if not to rise and lay hold on eternal life,7
at least to stir in your tomb, and give us some token
for hope that you are not already past feeling,8-blind,
deaf, dead, spiritually, utterly, everlastingly dead!
1 Eph. vi. 17.
Phil. iii. 18.
1 I 1 Tim. vi. 12.
2 I Cor. vi. II.
John iii. 18.
8 Eph. iv. 19.
8
³ 1 John v. 19.
Jude 7.
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57
Oh, for a pulse of life in those frozen hearts! A
flush of blood, even though it were angry blood, in
those pale cheeks! Give me Saul breathing out
threatenings and slaughters, rather than Gallio caring
for none of these things.1 Some arrow of truth has
pierced the heart of Saul or he would not rage so;
and soon you read of him as Paul the Apostle. But I
fear Gallio went on in his careless way, till the pains
of hell made him care for ever.
"I came to break your head," said a man once to
Whitefield, "but by the grace of God you have broken
my heart." That was a vile purpose to go to church
with, but if he had gone in a complacent frame, and
quietly slept or coolly criticised the preacher, it would
have been far worse. He would not have carried
away that priceless treasure-a broken heart.
If what we say is true, why do you not act upon it?
If false, how can you bear to be charged with it? If
our charges are false, they are also insulting and
outrageous. If you believe them to be false, your
conduct, in hearing them so calmly, and coming back
to hear them again, and even sometimes applauding
us for the vehement way in which we assail and de-
nounce you, is perfectly astonishing. Why, look at it!
You gather in a church on a Sabbath morning, and we
strip away all your hopes, one by one; we weigh all
your moralities and good deeds in the scale of God's
law, and, by God's authority, write "wanting" on
every one; 2 we cast the light of heaven on your
boasted righteousness, and the comely robe, in which
1 Acts ix. I; xviii. 17.
2 Rom. iii. 20.
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you were so confidently wrapped, turns to rags and
filthiness;¹ we press on into your very heart, and in
God's name pronounce it deceitful above all things
and desperately wicked; 2 and when we have left you
thus naked, helpless, guilty, and without hope, we shew
you the storm which death, devils, and hell are urging
on, and which waits only for the nod of the sin-
avenging God whom you have made your enemy, and
are now provoking to sweep you as chaff into ruin
beyond redemption; and believing all this to be
false, you bear it, and go out smiling, and say that
was a good sermon, and you like to hear a man preach
that way; and that night or the next Sabbath you
come back to hear the same things again!
Or if you say you believe these things to be true,
your conduct is still more amazing. If true, they
should concern you infinitely: yet you are not con-
cerned at all. If true, they are of eternal weight, and
should override every business, care, and pleasure in
the world; yet the lightest trifle of time overrides
them, and tramples them in the dust and buries them
in utter forgetfulness. You will call Bartimeus a fool
if he does not try to get his eyes opened this very day.
But what name will you reserve for yourselves, if, while
I this day, as one of these ambassadors of God, offer
you pardon and healing and eternal life through Jesus
Christ, who now passes by to bestow them, you once
more refuse the Saviour, and go on as before toward
perdition?
But Bartimeus is no fool. As he hears he acts.
8
2 Jer. xvii. 9. ³ Job xxi. 18.
1 Isa. lxiv. 6.
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59
"Jesus of Nazareth passeth by," say the multitude,
and straightway the blind eyes fill with tears, the faded
cheeks flush with hope, the hands are outstretched in
supplication, and his very soul pours out in the cry,
"Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"
II. This reveals to us the second mark of right
hearing ;—It fills a man with earnestness. If he has
heard such truth as he ought, he not only acts, but
acts with energy. Thus Bartimeus acted. When
he heard he cried out." The word means a great and
strong cry. The multitude was around him; but he
cared not for that. They were mostly strangers to
him; but he cared not for that. Those who did
know him knew him as a beggar; but he cared not
for that. He had never been in the presence of Christ
before; but even this did not deter him. Beggar as
he was, he "cried out" before Him, before them all.
He felt too deeply the bitterness of blindness, the
misery of poverty, the degradation of beggary, to
think of these things.
So it must be with you, O sinners. If you would
enter heaven you must be in earnest about it.¹ Men
were brought on beds to Christ to be healed,2 but no
man ever went to heaven lying on his bed and borne
on the shoulders of others. In the preparations need-
ful for gaining heaven, I find an account of many
pieces of hard armour, 3 but no mention of a bed.
There they rest in their beds, but our rest is not yet.
You will never wake up some fine morning and find
1 Matt. xi. 12.
8
Eph. vi. 11-18.
2 Mark ii. 2, 3•
4 Isa. lvii. 2.
60
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
"
yourself pious. The great change will not steal softly
over you while you sit at ease. You must be awake,
and up, and at it. You must strive, says Christ;1-
Strive like a wrestler who has his foe and his match;
-Strive like a runner, when the race is long and the
runners many, and but one can win;-Strive as the
soldier, when the conflict is sharp, and he who con-
quers not must die.2 Such is the Scripture usage of
that "striving" by which we enter into life. The word
is full of earnestness,—'Aywvičeσ0€,-earnestness even
to "agony!"
Let us now see how this earnestness found expres-
sion. So shall we have another mark of true hearing.
III. When the gospel is heard aright, it leads to
prayer. This was the first thing Bartimeus did, when
he was told that Jesus was passing by-he prayed.
And this is always the first thing for a lost sinner who
hears of Christ-let him pray. A soul truly in earnest
after salvation will cry for help. If a man feels his
just exposure to wrath, he will be full of anguish, and
his anguish will constrain him to cry out. For what
is prayer but human need craving the Divine fulness,
the wretchedness of earth begging the consolations of
heaven, man's guilt beseeching the mercy of God?
By prayer the helplessness of the creature clings to
the strength of the Creator. Prayer is a voice from
nature's wound calling to the heavenly Healer.
Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and when
our strength fails, prayer is nature's messenger for
helpers. It may be the shriek of fright, the scream
1 Luke xiii. 24.
21 Cor. ix. 24-27; 1 Tim. vi. 12.
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61
of torture, the imploring eye, the quivering lip, the
clasped hands, the pleading tongue, or any of the
thousand forms by which heart speaks to heart;-
these are nature's prayers.
And when did nature fail to pray in her need?
Hunger will beg and pain cry out. Though the fever
have caused madness, the sufferer will still cry for
None need teach the babe to clamour for its
water.
nurture.
Birds can plead for their young, and the dog
entreat you, with all the power of speech, to follow him
to the forest where his master lies robbed and bleeding.
And has the soul no voice in its sickness unto death?
Is the instinct of the brute a sure guide, and do the
reason and conscience of men slumber or lie? Or
are they quicksighted and honest about bodily wants
and earthly things, only to shew themselves utterly
besotted, when glory, honour, and immortality are at
stake? When your souls are in jeopardy, must you be
plied with such urgency before you will cry for help?
Alas, I see you lying in the arms of Satan, bound hand
and foot with his hellish fetters, and borne swiftly away
into his region of outer darkness.¹ His cruel eye glares
on you, in anticipation of the tortures he will soon
begin on your helpless soul. Further and further from
hope and heaven he bears you, the frown of God is on
you, and the shadows of night are deepening around
you. Thicker grows the gloom, when flash! flash!
shoot up the flames of hell, as it is moved from beneath
1 1 John v. 19; “lieth in wickedness;” rather (it is gene-
rally agreed), "in the Wicked One." 2 Tim. ii. 26; Eph.
ii. 2.
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to meet you at your coming. Ah, why are you not
terrified? Why do we hear no cry of alarm, no call
for help? Does your soul know no law of self-preser-
vation? Has it no instinct of terror? Does Reason
see nothing fearful in the blackness of darkness, the
pangs of undying remorse, the torments of unquench-
able fire?1 Can it be that you believe these things?
You say you do, but can it be, when they do not move
you to prayer? When God calls you from the secret
place of thunder,2 shall His voice be unregarded?
When He declares that these things truly describe your
woful state, will you give Him the lie by your indif-
ference, and still sleep on as you fast post to hell?
Sinners, be entreated to pray. You must pray or
perish. No sinner ever went to heaven without prayer.
God's curse is on the prayerless. The tongue that
will not call on Him for mercy, shall consume in the
fires of His wrath. Sleep now or not, you will not
sleep long. If the voice of grace, sometimes warning,
sometimes inviting, cannot wake you and bring you to
your knees, God will try the voice of unmixed ven-
geance. He will see whether the shout of the archangel
and the trump of God will fail. Ah! then you will
wake, to sleep no more. Then you will come to your
knees, for the weight of the Omnipotent hand will
bring you down. The stoutest devil will bend and
you will crouch beside hiin, for God has sworn by
Himself that to Him every knee shall bow. Then
well not, only you
you will pray, but you had as
1 Jude 13; Mark ix. 43-48.
• Isa. xlv. 23.
2 Ps. lxxxi. 7.
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63
cannot help it.¹ You will pray like Dives 2-pray even
to a man, you who now will not pray to God; pray for
a drop of water, you who now will not pray for heaven ;
pray for that poor drop at the hand of a despised
beggar, you who now will not accept infinite blessings
from the Hand that made the world, and was nailed
to the cross for our salvation! Thus shall you pray.
But how will the answer pierce you with remorse and
freeze you in despair. "Son, remember!" Compelled
remembrance is the deathless sting of remorse.
great gulf fixed!"
66 А
There is the necessity and seal
of unending despair. Pray then, pray! while you
hear that "Jesus of Nazareth passeth by."
IV. And do it at once. Promptness is another
mark of a good hearer of the gospel. It is found in
Bartimeus. "And when he heard," that is, as soon as
he heard, "he began to cry out."
But what need of such haste? "Jesus is going
slowly," he might say, "and some little while must
pass before He is gone. Be sure I will be in time.”
Do you never reason so? "There is time enough
yet. My life goes slowly; my health is firm; I shall
certainly be in time.”
Your life! your health!
"Great God! on what a slender thread
Hang everlasting things!"
"Or if He does get a little out of sight," Bartimeus
might say, "while I am attending to some little
matters, I will run after Him and call Him. I will
• Luke xvi. 23-26.
1 Prov. i. 24-28.
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BLIND BARTIMEUS.
never think of letting Him get out of hearing. I will
be in time."
And is not this your way? Are you not letting
mercies and opportunities slip by, and running the
frightful risk that they may all pass away, and leave
you on a death-bed, to call, in helpless agitation and
dismay, for Sabbaths and sermons and Jesus Christ,
rejected often, and now gone beyond your call-gone
for ever?
"But I only want a little time, and that for most
important business," Bartimeus might plead.
Why man, what business can you have now, but
getting your blind eyes opened ?
"Oh, that is the chief thing to be sure, and I mean
to attend to that. It would never do to neglect that
greatest of matters. Ah, would that they were open
now! But really, I must go about in this crowd for
a few minutes, and collect what alms I can. I must
live!"
Before any of you undertakes to rebuke this supposed
reply too harshly, see if he had not more cause than
you think for such a course; nay, if he had not all
the reasons that men now urge for neglecting their
salvation.
Begging was his regular business, the only way he
had of supporting himself, and possibly, a helpless
family. Is not that excuse thought a good one in this
day? Did you never use it? Is it not often heard.
in this form?" I am in a business in which I can't
be a Christian. I am connected with the railroad,
or the Post-office, and am required to labour on the
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65
Sabbath. I am very sorry it is so, and I mean some
day to get out of it and attend to religion."
Would to God our groaning land were delivered
from the curse of Sunday mails and Sunday railway
trains, and all the oppressions and abominations they
drag after them! But while they last, the duty of
men who fear God and mean to save their souls,
is clear; and that is to protest against them, pray
against them, and above all, stand aloof from them,
if they would not have the blood of God's "murdered
Sabbaths" staining their skirts and crying from the
ground for vengeance. Whatever your business, if
it stands in the way of your serving God, it is wrong,
and you must give it up, or keep it at the cost of
losing Christ. It may try you sorely, but you had
better pluck out a right eye, or cut off a right hand,
than be cast into hell.2
I miss the honest face of a German, who used to be
in his seat every Sabbath morning and night, listening
anxiously to the Word of God. For many years he
had faithfully served one of our railroad companies.
through seven days of the week. But at length his
conscience was awakened, and he could no longer
serve them on the Sabbath. Six days he would
labour hard, but God's day he must have for God.
So he gave up his place. It was in the winter of
1854-5 too, when thousands of workmen were thrown
out of employment, and when men already out had
almost no hope of getting in. But in the face of all
this he gave up his place. Then month after month
1 Matt. vi. 24; xvi. 24.
E
2 Matt. v. 29, 30.
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passed by, and brought no relief; not one dollar could
he earn. The savings of years of toil were fast con-
suming, and soon his family would be suffering, and
still he could not get employment. Then his old place
was offered him, and it was a sore temptation. But
God's Law stood up in his way, and bade him beware.
So he was strengthened, and still trusted in God and
obeyed His Word. For long months more were his
faith and patience tried, until at last, with a reluctant
but determined heart, he left the city, and sought in
the far West a new home, where by the sweat of his
brow he might earn his bread, and still have "freedom
to worship God."
If all true men would do likewise, God would soon
right their wrongs. He would teach our Government
and these huge corporations, that though they have
joined hand in hand to defy the God of heaven, they
shall not go unpunished. He is yet a God that
judgeth in the earth. As they tempt men to trans-
gression, He will brand them with the curse of Jero-
boam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.1 He
will set His face against them in dreadful providences.
He has dealt with our nation as He did with Israel of
old, in great goodness. We may yet have to learn, as
they have, in exile and tears, His severity also.2 And
these powerful companies will find, that if their re-
quirements and God's come in conflict, their best
servants will leave them, and then their places of high
trust must be filled by those who fear not God, and
therefore regard not man,3 and then swift damage and
2 Rom. xi. 22. 3 Luke xviii. 4.
¹ 1 Kings xii. 26–30; xiii. 34.
1
I
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67
ruin must come upon them, until they repent and
learn righteousness.
Meantime, let all who suffer for conscience' sake
take this good word of Christ for their consolation;
Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left
house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children for
the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive
manifold more in this present time, and in the world
to come life everlasting!1
But if Bartimeus choose to attend to his alms in-
stead of his eyes, see if he has not a still stronger
reason. Begging is not only his business, but this
happens to be a very "busy season," as we say in the
city, or "harvest-time," as they say in the country. A
multitude was passing! When had he such a chance
before? He waits day after day, glad of an occasional
traveller; but to-day the people pour along in crowds,
and can he afford to leave his business now? Sight
is no doubt a very good thing; but suppose all these
people should give him even a penny a-piece-think of
that! He might go home almost rich-might almost
retire from business! And after all has not Provi-
dence given him this opportunity, and would it be
exactly right to throw it away?
So have I heard professors of religion and non-pro-
fessors reason. So do they put earth's business above
all the calls of God. With such words do some
members of the Church throw all the active work of
the Church on some one else; yes, on others as busy
as you, or at least, as busy as you have any right to
¹ Luke xvii. 29, 30.
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be. They redeem time, or take time at a sacrifice,
which you could take, and should, and would, if your
hearts were right before God. Some of you make
business and busy seasons (which seem to last most
of the year), an excuse for not seeking God, and some
for not serving Him, despite all your professions and
Some of you are too much pressed ever to get
to prayer-meetings, or the services before the holy
Communion, to do any of the work of the Church, by
which her influence is enlarged, her wheels are made
to move on, and by which your graces might be en-
riched and manifested.
VOWS.
In the dark ages men sometimes sold themselves
by deliberate compact to the devil. For so much
wealth or honour he should have their souls. Men
rarely do that now, I suppose, in any formal way.
But this busy age, busy country, and busy city, are
binding them in chains, and sealing them for hell, as
surely as any infernal sorceries. When men say they
have no time for religion, while they acknowledge its
divine claims, they really say, "Business, be thou my
God! I devote myself to thee."
Men of the world! You must take time for religion,
or eternity for remorse. If you take the world for your
service, you must take hell for your reward.¹
Men of the Church! Your whole time is God's, and
you must use it for His glory, so as to satisfy, not only
your ungodly business-partner, and your torpid con-
science, but the severities of the Judgment Bar. If
you do not always make the world's calls yield to
1 Luke xvi. 25.
-
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69
Christ's, then you deny your Saviour and belie your
profession.1
But let me no longer misrepresent Bartimeus, even
in supposition. He delays not, but makes haste.
Christ is passing, and he may be too late, and there-
fore he is in haste.
He is blind and feels the misery of blindness, and
therefore he is in haste.
If he begs first, Christ may be insulted by this
putting of filthy lucre before His healing power, and
so may refuse the blessing when it is sought,2 and
therefore he is in haste.
And sinner, be you in haste. There is a limit to
God's long-suffering. He will not see His calls made
light of for ever. He will not stand waiting all the day
His
long. His Providence and grace will move on.
voice will be silent. He will noiselessly withdraw, and
you shall call after Him and grope after Him for ever,
but never find Him again!
3
V. and VI. Two other marks of a good hearer of
the gospel are found in Bartimeus. He heard with
Faith and Humility. He trusted in Jesus and was
lowly in heart. He felt his need and looked to Christ
for aid. Humility laid him in the dust, while Faith
reached up and took hold on the strength of the Re-
deemer.
His faith even outran the word of the multitude.
They spoke of "Jesus of Nazareth," - Nazareth of
Galilee-a despised town of a despised province; but
he could call Him "Son of David," and "Lord." In
1 Matt. x. 37-39. 2 Heb. xii. 16, 17.
3 Prov. i. 24-35
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3
these words he hailed Him as the Messiah, the pro-
mised Messiah of God, of whom Isaiah had foretold
that He should open the eyes of the blind. Though
Nathanael might ask, Can any good come out of
Nazareth? 2 and the Pharisees assert that, Out of
Galilee there ariseth no prophet, this poor blind man
had an eye of faith which saw in Him the great
descendant of David who should redeem Israel—
David's Son and David's Lord.4 He believed too
that He was now passing by, and that He had power
enough and love enough to open his eyes. This was
his simple faith, and by this he took hold on Christ
for deliverance.
And how deep was his humility! He hid nothing,
pretended nothing. He came as he was. Blind, he
came as blind. Poor, he came as poor. A beggar,
he came as a beggar. He set up no claim as of right.
He told of no good deed. But needy and wretched
and helpless and unworthy, he cast himself on the
tender heart of Christ; "Jesus, Son of David, have
mercy on me! O Lord, Son of David, have mercy on
me!"
But is this the whole lesson? When we have found
both faith and humility in this prayer, are we to view
them apart only? May either be absent, and are they
here in friendly meeting but by chance?
No: the prayer has a deeper and more precious
teaching. Faith and humility are so blended in it,
that none can say how much is one, and how much
1 Isa. xxxv. 5; xlii. 7.
'John vii. 52.
• John i. 46.
• Matt. xxii. 45.
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71
the other. If faith is more manifest in the titles he
gives Christ, yet humility is not wanting; and if
humility shines brightest in his asking for "mercy,"
faith is seen in his simple reliance on that mercy.
And so it is always. Faith and humility meet in
the sinner's experience, not as occasional companions
only; they ever walk lovingly together as sisters. They
cannot separate. Like the Siamese twins they live in
each other's presence alone; should they part, they
would die. A sinner cannot believe in Jesus and not
be humble; he cannot be truly humble without be-
lieving in Jesus.
This is most needful for a sinner to know; for when
seeking Christ, he fears it would be presumptuous to
believe and rest on Christ at once. So he still stays
away and tries to prepare himself for Christ. He
thinks that this is true humility; but it is only pride
in disguise, and so deceiving him.
"Alas, I am lost," begins the sinner, "what shall I
do to be saved?"1
"Come to me," says Christ, "I came to seek and
save that which was lost." 2
"But how can I come? I am a sinner."
"Come because you are a sinner. I came not to
call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." 3
"But I am such a sinner," says this false humility,
(for you see it dares dispute with Christ,) "there never
was a heart as bad as mine."
"The greater your sin, the greater your need ci
me," says Christ, "and do not fear, for I came into
2 Luke xix. IO.
1 Acts xvi. 30.
8 Luke v. 32.
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the world to save sinners, even the chief. This is a
faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation."1
"But my heart is so hard."
“Then give it to me, and I will soften it, I will take
away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give
you an heart of flesh.” 2
"But I do not even feel my sins as I ought,"
continues this disputatious, arrogant humility.
"And you never will," answers Christ, "until you
have a new heart; come to me, and I will give you
one." 3
(6
'But I cannot see anything good in my heart;
I am too unworthy; I have no faith, no love.”
"Then come without them," says Christ, "and I
will give them to you." 4
But the heart is not ready to give up yet, and take
Christ just at His word. It cannot understand that it
is to go to Christ with absolutely nothing to recom-
mend it, and so it toils on with huge pains and anxiety,
to do something, or be something, or feel something,
which shall make it more fit to come to Christ. So
after a while Christ comes again and says very kindly,
"Poor heart, you can never make yourself better.
Only I can do that. If you come at all, it must be
just as you are.”
"Alas! alas! I wish I could, but I seem to get
worse and worse."
"But do you believe, or not, that I am able to save
you?” says Christ.
1
I 1 Tim. i. 15.
Ezek. xxxvi. 26.
2 Ezek. xxxvi. 26.
♦ Gal. v. 22, with Acts ii. 33-
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73
"Oh, yes! You are able, but I am so unworthy."
And so this blind self-righteousness reasons round
and round in a circle, and still comes back to the
same fatal point, and though very sad, takes a secret
comfort in being so very humble!
Does not this limit
Am I a Saviour for
Does your unworthi-
Now Christ comes again, and speaks searching
words, but very patiently; "Blind and stubborn
heart, I will shew you a little of yourself. You say
you believe I am able to save all sinners; able to
save you. But you do not, or you would trust me
to be your Saviour. You could trust me to save a
softer, or a better heart, or a heart that felt more;
but not your hard, wicked heart.
my power, my grace, my blood?
little sins, and not for great? 1
ness overtop my righteousness? 2 Does my blood
fail for your heart? My righteousness and blood
are infinite, and do you stretch up to measure them
and find them wanting? I say I can save you, and
what arrogance it is that denies it! What boundless
presumption! If you were better, you would come,
you say. Yes; you are too proud to come as other
sinners. You must needs be an exception. You
cannot be altogether indebted to grace. A little
worthiness must be found, for the glory and comfort
of your self-righteousness. Abase yourself in the
4
3
dust, and come just as you are."
If these cutting words of Christ slay the sinner's
pride, true humility fills his heart. It dares not
1 Isa. i. 18.
8
³ 1 John i. 7.
}
2 Rom. x. 4.
Jer. xxiii. 6; Heb. vii. 25.
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dispute with Christ, or think of making any change in
His plan of grace, amazing as its freeness seems. It
just takes Him at His word, and says,
"Just as I am, without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidst me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come!
"Just as I am, and waiting not,
To rid my soul of one dark blot,
To Thee whose blood can cleanse each spot,
O Lamb of God, I come!
“Just as I am,-poor, wretched, blind—
Sight, riches, healing of the mind,
Yea, all I need, in Thee to find,
O Lamb of God, I come!
>>
Thus do these holy sisters, Faith and Humility,
go together to Christ. When Humility, looking down
upon her sins, would faint in the way, Faith feels the
pressure of her drooping form, and lifting her own
clear eyes to the glories of Christ, bids her look to
Him and be comforted. And even Faith grows bolder,
when Humility in her turn whispers, "Do not fear;
though our sins are many,¹ He can cleanse them. If
He says come, we cannot but take Him at His word."
And Humility grows lowlier, when Faith drawing near,
and fixing her eye on Calvary, says, "O sister, against
what a Saviour we have sinned!"
1 Ps. ciii. 3, 11; Luke vii. 47.

RE
IV.
"And many charged him that he should hold his peace; but
he cried the more a great deal, Thou Son of David, have
mercy upon me!"
HERE is never a knock at heaven's gate,
but it sounds through hell, and devils come
out to silence it.1 Whenever a soul is striv-
ing for heaven, or heaven striving for a
soul, which is but another side of the same truth,
there two worlds are at strife.2 The Mohammedans
have a saying, that whenever two persons meet there
is always a third. The proverb refers to the presence
of God. But it is just as true that when God and a
human soul meet on business for eternity, Satan will
be there. He will be there as an opposer and de-
stroyer. All souls are his at first, for by nature we
are children of wrath;5 and he never lets his own go
without a struggle. He hath the cheek-teeth of a
great lion, and it is not easy to rend the prey from his
mouth.7

3
6
1
Both Christ and Satan came on earth as destroyers;
Satan to destroy the works of God, but Christ to de-
1 I Pet. v. 8.
39; Eph. vi.
2 Matt. xiii. 37,
3
Luke viii. 12.
2 Cor. ii. 11;
Eph. ii. 3.
11, 12; 1 John iv. 4.
4
Eph. ii. 2; John viii. 44.
7 Mark ix. 29.
• Mark ix. 20, 25, 26.
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stroy his destructions and the destroyer himself.¹
And so we must look for war on the earth, and must
ourselves take part in the battle, if we mean to go to
heaven.2 The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence,
and the violent taketh it by force.3
The children of Israel sang bravely on the shore of
the Red Sea, and behaved themselves stoutly. They
seemed just ready to go up and possess the promised
land. But the howling wilderness soon shut up their
song, and when they began to hear of giants and war
chariots of iron, and cities walled up to heaven, their
craven hearts died within them, and for base safety,
beside full flesh-pots, they were ready to slink back
into slavery.4
The giants are not all dead yet, and if a pilgrim do
but shew himself, going toward the City of God, out
they come to give him battle. So, those who mean
to serve Christ, may as well make up their minds at
once to meet opposition.5
Bartimeus had sad proof of this. As soon as he
began to cry out for mercy, rebukes rained down upon
him from all sides. Satan raised a clamour, and tried
to beat him down.
opposition to the old murderer, though men were his
agents? What was the offence? A sightless beggar
beseeches the compassion of the Heavenly Physician.
He has never been near Him before. This is the
Am I not right in ascribing this
1 Rev. xii. 12; Heb. ii. 14; 1 John iii. 8.
3
Eph. vi. 11–18.
• Matt. xi. 12.
4 Exod. xv. 1-21; xvi. 1-3; Deut. i. 27, 28.
5 2 Tim. iii. 12.
.
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77
only opportunity of his life. A word or touch can
heal him, and in a sudden agony of earnestness, he
begs the blessed stranger to pity him-said I not
rightly, that none but a devil would have bidden him
hold his peace?
But Satan hides while he works. He is sometimes
like a lion roaring on his prey,¹ but oftener a serpent
gliding in the grass, biting, gone.2 He can even put
on the form of an angel of light," and here he wears
the guise of the followers of Christ.
There is a manifold, hellish craft in this. He
conceals himself, puts the shame of his deeds on the
cause of God, destroys his victims more easily and
surely because his hand is not seen, corrupts all who
do his work, and thus brings them under his own con-
demnation, and fills many who see what is done with
such prejudice against the cause and followers of
Christ that they too are ruined.
4
The ungodly world bids anxious souls to hold their
peace. It cannot bear the sinner's distress. If his
conscience is disturbed its own is not quite easy. If
he cries out through fear of the wrath to come, a
shudder passes through its heart. If he speaks of
heaven, it is not ready, it feels, for that, and its own
If the weight of
joys look pale in that pure light.
eternal concernments smite him amidst its gay throngs,
it has the unpleasant effect of the sudden death of an
actor in the theatre. The play goes on, to be sure,
but the applause is not hearty, and a chill shadow
1
I Pet. v. 8.
8
2 Cor. xi. 14.
2 2 Cor. xi. 3.
4 Matt. iii. 7.
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damps the mirth. The tragedy is gloomy and the
comedy hollow.
Therefore the world sets itself to make an end of
these convictions. For this it has innumerable devices.
It will flatter or curse. For some it has persecutions,
for others promotions. Now it laughs with irresistible
merriment, now dazzles with deceitful splendours, and
now cuts one's acquaintance with a sneer. It bewilders
the reason with sophistry, and bewitches the senses
with voluptuousness. And two other foes it brings
into the field for the silencing of crying souls-Infide-
lity, with its thousand "phases" (changing every day),
its flippancy, its sarcasms, its dogmatism (which never
change); and Atheism, with its sullen front and frozen
heart.
But I pause not on any of these. I wish now to
address the professed people of God. I pray you heed
an honest warning.
I say, then, plainly: You are in great danger every
day of rebuking anxious squls, and charging them to
hold their peace. I do not say you do it wittingly. It
is a sin so awful, so unnatural, so cruel, that every
lover of the Saviour must utterly abhor it. Yet even
Christ's true friends may commit it carelessly and un-
consciously. Bear then some cautions.
I. By injudicious criticism of sermons you may stifle
convictions and drive sinners away from Christ.
We do not refuse to be tried by honest and en-
lightened judgments; and when we hear their verdict,
it should give us little concern, except to learn how we
may become wiser and more faithful stewards of the
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79
mysteries of God. But we charge our hearers not to
forget that, however humble our abilities, if we are in
our place at all, we are Ambassadors for Christ,2 stand-
ing in His room, making known His terms of pardon;
and that, so far as we preach the Word,3 He will take
its vindication into His own hands, and avenge it of
every slight and all contempt.4
Nay more; when we preach Christ crucified, our
message is the power of God, by which alone sinners
can be saved; but your criticisms may turn it into
very foolishness, and a stumbling-block, and the savour
of death to some beloved one for whose salvation you
have been striving.5
I cannot better illustrate this caution than by a true
narrative from "The Central Presbyterian." "A pious
lady once left a church in this city [Richmond], in
company with her husband, who was not a professor
of religion. She was a woman of unusual vivacity,
with a keen perception of the ludicrous, and often
playfully sarcastic. As they walked along toward
home, she began to make some amusing and spicy
comments on the sermon, which a stranger, a man of
very ordinary talents and awkward manner, had
preached that morning in the absence of the pastor.
After running on in this vein of sportive criticism for
some time, surprised at the profound silence of her
husband, she turned and looked up in his face. He
was in tears. That sermon had sent an arrow of con-
1 I Cor. iv. I.
3
8 2 Tim. iv. 2.
2
2 Cor. v. 20.
4 Luke x. 16; ix. 26.
5 I Cor. i. 23, 24; 2 Cor. ii. 16.
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viction to his heart! What must have been the
anguish of the conscience-stricken 'wife, thus arrested
in the act of ridiculing a discourse which had been the
means of awakening the anxiety of her unconverted
husband!"
Take care
Watch, then, your words and spirit.
what you say, and before whom you say it. Are you
about to speak in love, in humility, in the temper of
Christ? Will any one be the better for what you say?
Will your criticisms deepen your child's or your friend's
reverence for Christ's Ambassadors, and God's chosen
instrument for saving souls? When you have said
what you wish, will you become thereby fellow-helpers
to the truth ?1 If not, oh, leave it all unsaid, lest in
criticising the flaws of the earthen vessel, you be found
to have despised the heavenly treasure; 2 lest you turn
aside the sword of the Spirit,³ and with great sin to
yourself, bring destruction on some most precious
soul.
II. Beware also of unseasonable levity after solemn
appeals.
I do not warn you against cheerfulness. It is
pleasant to see the faces of God's people beaming
with the secret refreshments of the Spirit, or reflecting
the glories which shine from between the cherubim.+
But this sacred rejoicing is no more like levity, than
the clear diffused light of morning is like the flash of
shaken tinsel. Cheerfulness is the genial warmth of
the Sun of Righteousness; 5 levity the crackling of
3 Eph. vi. 17.
1
3 John 8.
4 Ps. lxxx. I.
2 2 Cor. iv. 7.
5 Mal. iv. 2.
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81
thorns under a pot. One is the voice of rejoicing
which becometh the tabernacles of the righteous,2 the
other the laughter of fools, fit only for the tents of
wickedness.3 Cheerfulness can mingle with solemnity,
just as the clear heavens may be solemn with night,
yet cheerful with stars.
A Christian can sit in God's House, and relish all
the truths of His Word. He may indeed often hear
what is immediately distressing. Unlike the little
book which the angel gave John, it may be bitter and
painful in the mouth, that is, in the hearing; yet being
mixed with faith, it shall through grace be sweet and
wholesome in the digestion. In the very thunders of
Sinai he will hear the voice of his covenant God,5 and
prostrate himself in holy abasement. If God be set
forth as a consuming fire, taking vengeance, he will
confess that this is but his own desert; and while
adoring the sovereign grace which has saved him from
wrath, he will be grieved for transgressors, and weep
for them, and pray for them; and when the congrega-
tion breaks up, and he meets them face to face, there
will be something in his eye and voice and pressure
of the hand, which will touch sinners to the heart, with
a sense of their own danger, and the affectionate anxiety
of God's people.
8
How different the conduct of many professors!
They may be dull enough while the word is preached,
but when the benediction is pronounced, how relieved
3 Ps. lxxxiv. IO.
6 Heb. xii. 29.
1 Eccl. vii. 6.
4 Rev. x. 9.
7 Ps. li. 4.
2 Ps. cxviii. 15.
5 Exod. xx. 2.
8 Ps. cxix. 158.
F
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and lively they seem! With what alacrity they address
themselves to the business of leaving the church! With
what sprightliness are the aisles suddenly animated!
And so with jests and vanity and levity they go to
their homes, sit at their tables, and hold mirthful
converse with their unconverted children and friends.
Ah! in some breast at that table the struggle for
eternity may have begun; the Spirit of God and the
powers of darkness may be engaged in their final
conflict, and this foolish jesting may decide it for
despair and hell! What a fearful truth! One may
laugh away the Holy Ghost and all conviction of sin
laugh the awakened conscience to sleep and precious
souls to perdition!
III. This brings to mind another way by which you
may bid sinners hold their peace-by blindness to any
beginning concern.
If you do not watch for the Spirit, He may pass by
unseen. If He is not cherished, He may pass away.
A great part of this cherishing work belongs to you, as
disciples of Christ and friends of the Spirit. By mere
neglect you may ruin the work in which you are
called to be workers together with God.¹ You fail to
come up to the help of the Lord,² and so your friend
may be lost.
Would you see how you should watch? Come
with me to the chamber where a babe lies dying.
A breathless messenger has gone for the physician,
but still He comes not. How the worn mother gazes
on her little sufferer in an agony of fondness and fear;
1 2 Cor. vi. I.
2 Judges v. 23.
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83
how she sinks in anguish before the mercy-seat, and
pleads like the Syrophenician woman at the feet of
Jesus; how she rises wildly, and watches at the
window for the physician; how at every sound of
wheels she flushes with eagerness, and then grows
sick at heart as they turn the corner, and the sound
dies away; how she springs to the door as his well-
known step is heard on the stair; and then, as he
searches every symptom, how she waits on his every
look, living on a gleam of hope, ready to die if his face
is darkened by a cloud!
O disciple of Jesus, thy child, thy brother, some
beloved of thine, is sick unto eternal death; and
where is this watching for the Great Physician? this
weeping, longing, praying? Ah, when He has of His
own heart's love come near, and alarmed the dying
soul from its fatal torpor, and prescribed His sovereign
remedies, you will not even be nursing fathers and
mothers,2 to carry on the Lord's gracious work, and
save these dear souls from death!
IV. Nor is this the worst. Professing parents often
lay plans for their children directly opposed to the
Spirit's work.
In your
Let one example illustrate my meaning.
morning devotions you ask God to convert your
children-even on the next Sabbath to send His
word with power to their hearts. Surely you should
pray so, and I will suppose you do. But, before the
day is over, yielding to the tide of corrupt worldliness
around you, or the pleadings of your unconverted
1 Matt. xv. 22-28.
2 Isa. xlix. 23.
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children, you arrange for a dancing-party the next
week, and issue your invitations. Only a children's
dancing-party, and only with the piano, you know,"
you say patronisingly and cheerfully to conscience,
though somehow conscience looks a little blank at
these nice distinctions, and does not return your
smile. But let that pass. Suppose, however, God
answers your prayer on the Sabbath, and one of these
children weeps under the sermon, and comes home
downcast and distressed; what will your condition
be? To say the least, will you feel no embarrassment?
No temptation to seem not to have observed it, until
your scheme is carried out? No regret even, that
these feelings should have come just then? How
awkward that when you had meant your daughter
to be so bright and beautiful in the dance on Monday,
that she should be convicted of sin, and fleeing from
God's wrath, and weeping so, on Sunday! On the
other hand, will you have no fear lest the excitements
of the giddy scene shall quench the Spirit,¹ and
harden the heart for ever? 2 And, besides all this,
would not these convictions take you by surprise, and
send a guilty pang to your heart? Could you be, as
you ought always to be, expecting in strong faith the
answer of your prayers, and ready to bless God with a
clear heart, and go in secret with this dear anxious
soul, and mingle your tears, and together beseech
Christ for mercy?
But how can I exhaust the ways by which professed
Christians may bid troubled sinners hold their peace?
2 Heb. iii. 13.
1 I Thess. v. 19.
BLIND BARTIMEUS:
85
J
By all your worldly-mindedness and worldly-confor-
mity; by every proof you give that you think more
of this life than of that to come; that you will spend
more, sacrifice more, go through more to gain earthly
ends than for Christ and His cause; by all these you
become stumbling-blocks in the way of sinners coming
to Christ.
These, too, are the things you cannot hide. Some
very pious looks and tones for special seasons; some
very common-place Christian observations now and
then; some very general sighing over the fact that
"We all come short," &c., &c., none of these will do.
Your little children and your servants see the incon-
sistency.
Oh, this worldliness in professors! This want of
whole-conformity to Christ!¹ This is the most
grievous stain on Christianity, the hardest argument
of infidelity, the greatest hindrance of revivals, and
their surest extinguisher. Because of this hath the
Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in
His anger. For this her ways mourn, her gates are
desolate, her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and
she is in bitterness; while her enemies blaspheme,
and all that pass by clap their hands at her; they hiss
and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem! 2
Now let me sound an honest alarm to all of every
name and condition, who in any way charge convicted
sinners to hold their peace. You are opposing the
work of God, and must beware of His heavy arm. If
you are His people and your opposition is unwitting,
1 Rom. xii. I, 2.
2 Lamentations.
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He will teach you needful lessons by the Voice of the
Rod.¹ They may be very hard,2 but you will have to
learn them.3 He will not suffer such sin upon you.4
But if you are not His people, you shall feel His
vengeance. You are falling on the eternal corner-
stone and shall be broken; and unless you speedily
cease to oppose those who would build upon it, and
begin yourself to build there, that stone shall one day
fall upon you and grind you to powder!5
There is no sadder doom than theirs who lead men
into sin, or keep souls from Christ. It is enough to
go to hell at all. But if I must go, let me go alone.
Let me not carry my tormentors with me. Its fires will
be hot enough, and its woes heavy enough, without
souls whom I have ruined, to heap them upon me in
revenge for ever pitiless, and exasperated for ever by
their own eternal agony. If I am bent on death, let
me, like Ahithophel, put my household in order and
die alone, and not like Samson gather the pillars of
the temple in my grasp, and drag others down with
me, myself falling undermost and buried in the deepest
ruin.7
Now let me say two things to awakened sinners.
Are you thus opposed? If you fail, this will not
excuse you. One man's sin may be another's temp-
tation and his ruin, but it can never be his apology.
Satan tempted Eve, and she tempted Adam, but all
1 Mic. vi. 9; Ps. cxix. 67, 71.
3 Prov. iii. 12; Rev. iii. 19.
5 Matt. xxi. 44.
7 Judges xvi. 30.
2 Heb. xii. II.
* Heb. xii. 10.
6 2 Sam. xvii. 23.
多
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three of them were cursed.1 Even the heathen could
say, The gods help those who help themselves; and
we may be sure that Christ will help every soul in
earnest after Him. God has never said to the seed
of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain.2 Seek, says Christ,
and ye shall find.³ When God calls a soul out of
Egypt, old tyrants and new enemies, a deep sea and a
howling wilderness may all be in the way, but if that
soul be of good courage it shall not fail to eat of the
golden fruits of Canaan.4 Neither the chosen people
nor a chosen soul ever lost a battle except by cow-
ardice or sin. For His mercy endureth for ever;
twenty-six times over is that said in the Psalm that
recounts Israel's redemption and triumphs.5 At every
point, at every danger and every battle is the story
interrupted to say, For His mercy endureth for ever!
Has God said to you, Seek ye my face? And has
your heart replied, Thy face, Lord, will I seek? 6
Then, though a host should encamp against you, your
heart need not fear. Though father and mother for-
sake you, the God of your salvation will never leave
you nor forsake you. So, Wait upon the Lord; be of
good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart!
Wait, I say, on the Lord.8
7
Are you thus opposed?
Do as Bartimeus did.
"He cried the more," says Matthew; "the more a
great deal," or "so much the more," say Mark and
Luke. Oh, that is brave! Opposition only rouses him
1 Gen. iii. 12-19.
Joshua v. II, 12.
2 Isa. xlv. 19.
5 Ps. cxxxvi.
'Ps. xxvii. 3, 10; Heb. xiii. 5.
³ Matt. vii. 7, 8.
$ Ps. xxvii. 8.
8 Ps. xxvii. 14.
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to new energy. And so cry you. It is time to "cry
out" when men would beat you back from Christ;
time to summon all your strength when the enemy is
summoning, his. See! there is but one way; the path
is narrow; the foe is closing in. Now, soul, if thou
wouldst not be lost, quit thyself like a man.¹ Take
shield and sword, and lay about thee. It is now or
never with thee. Cry unto Christ and press forward.
And while using all thy might, still remember that
nothing can cut through the foe and clear thy path to
Christ, like this cry of faith, "Jesus, Son of David,
have mercy upon me!"
1 I Cor. xvi. 13.

RES
V.
"And Jesus stood still and called him."-(Matthew.)
"And Jesus stood still and commanded him to be called.".
(Mark.)
"And Jesus stood and commanded him to be brought unto
Him." (Luke.)
HEN Jesus thus "stood still," He was on
His way for the last time to Jerusalem.
His "hour" was drawing nigh,¹ and He
was hastening to meet it. He knew it was
to be an hour of anguish and desertion, the hour and
power of darkness.2 He saw the cup He was to drink,
and He knew the bitterness of every drop:3 He knew
He was to wrestle with the terrors of death and the
principalities of hell, and bear the insufferable tor-
ments of avenging wrath. Yet such love for sinners,
such hatred of sin, such zeal for the vindication of the
insulted glory of the Godhead filled and fired Him,
that He was pressing on, with almost impatient ardour.
He was straitened, in an inexpressible way, till He had
offered Himself a sacrifice to divine justice for the sins
of His people.4
Never was any being in the universe on such a
¹ John xvii. 1; Mark xiv. 41.
2 Luke xxii. 53.
* Mark x. 32-34; Matt. xx. 22; xxvi. 39; John xviii. 11.
4 Luke xii. 50.

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journey before. Never can even He be again. The
redemption of the world,¹ the defeat of Satan,2 and the
most illustrious display of the Attributes of God which
ever can be made,³ the infinite concernments of three
worlds, heaven, earth, and hell, and the glory of the
sovereign, eternal Godhead, all rested on Him and the
decease He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.4
Can He be arrested in this journey? Where is the
event mighty enough to stay His course? What
destiny of man or empire is worthy even of a thought
from Him now? Shall not the vision of infinite
suffering, and the infinite glory that is to follow,5
absorb His heart? Avaunt, even ye angels of God!
Let not cherubim or seraphim intrude now! Be
astonished, O ye heavens, and be silent, O earth,
while your Maker and Lord, who is over all, God
blessed for ever,6 treads His path of unutterable
shame and glory! He must walk that awful way
alone!
But what voice breaks this holy silence? Who dares
draw so near, with clamours so loud? A degraded
mortal! A miserable, blind beggar! obtruding his
petty sorrows on the Heart that is gathering to itself
the woes of a world! Can he be regarded? Will the
war-chariot, rushing into battle, turn aside for a worm?
Will the swell of the sea, roaring on the shore, be
checked lest a lamb be drowned? Shall we not join
with the multitude and bid Bartimeus hold his peace?
¹ John i. 29.
2 Heb. ii. 14.
Luke ii. 14; John xiii. 31; xvii. 1, 4, 6;
5 1 Pet. i. II.
4 Luke ix. 31.
Eph. iii. 10, 21.
6 Rom. ix. 5.
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91
Ah, if we do, neither we nor they know the heart of
our Lord. If we mean thus to do Him honour, we
will find we have only put ourselves to shame. For
see, He turns to the cry; He looks upon the beggar
There is no lightning in His eye, no terror in His
voice. His sorrowful face beams with benignity. He
stands still. His journey is stayed. He calls the
poor man to Him, and gently directs those about
Him to repeat His welcoming words and guide the
uncertain steps to Him.
"He stood still." Let us also stand and admire.
Here let us learn the grace of our Redeemer, and lay
up in our hearts the blessed teaching.
Is not the scene beautiful? Is not the grandeur of
such calmness Godlike; the gracefulness of such
condescension worthy of a birth in heaven? Can it
be less than celestial radiance that streams out in
such benevolence?
Then may we learn how unreasonable and how
unnatural is a favourite clamour of infidels against
the gospel. They say they cannot believe that the
Son of God came to this world and died for its re-
demption. This world is too small and mean in the
great scale of the universe, to allow them to think that
the Creator of countless millions of glorious suns and
systems, could have stooped to love and care and
suffer and die for the poor creatures of a day, who
live on this insignificant planet.
This objection taken from the discoveries of astro-
nomy, Dr Chalmers has swept away, in his own
magnificent manner, in his "Astronomical Discourses,"
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and I shall not attempt "the height of his great
argument." Neither does it suit my present design to
enter on a long discussion. But if the naturalness
and beauty of this scene near Jericho be granted, does
it not throw light on that tremendous tragedy which
the gospel declares to have been enacted on Calvary?
Granting-as who will not?—that no violence is done
in this scene to any of our ideas of the becoming
and beautiful, but rather that we have here a most
attractive blending of grace, condescension, and
heavenly charity, may not the Cross itself be granted,
and its Divine Sufferer?
To a narrow vision a structure may seem unsightly
from its vastness, while in miniature the same eye
might find the proportions exquisite. And have we
not, in this standing still of Jesus, amidst the urgencies
of such a journey, at the call of a beggar, a miniature
of the very things by which some are confounded or
repelled, in the immense transactions of the Atone-
ment? It was worthy of the illustrious Stranger-
nay, it was beautiful, it was sublime-to stay for the
relief of the unhappy beggar, though His own mind
was burdened with the weight of the infinite sacrifice
He was about to offer. Then who shall so vilify the
redemption of men by the Cross, as to pronounce it
unworthy of the Sovereign of a universe to which our
earth is but an atom? Shall an astronomer be so
lost in God's glory declared by the heavens,¹ in their
measureless and bright immensity, as to scorn the
thought of His upholding and blessing each sun and
1 Ps. xix. 1.
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93
star? Then, if these philosophers gaze on the lumi-
nous, illimitable fields of creation, until their dazzled
minds turn back with contempt to the world on which
they dwell, and find no worth nor grandeur in the Cross
which redeems it, though it saves numbers without
number from perdition, and glorifies them in the light
of God, and displays His Attributes before an admiring
universe, let us hold up the confessed truthfulness and
beauty of this simple incident, till, "like a mirror of
diamond, it pierce their misty eye-balls" 1 and lead
them on to the acknowledgment of the truth.
"Jesus stood still," and when did He ever refuse to
stay at the call of the distressed sinner? Nay, if He
stayed then, when can He refuse? Is He not the
same yesterday, to-day, and for ever?? Has the love,
which death and the grave could not quench, perished
in His exaltation? Did He not bring it with Him
from the throne? Or rather, did it not bring Him
from the throne? And is it not an everlasting love?
O needy sinner, He cannot refuse your cry. “Jesus,
Son of David, have mercy on me," finds its way through
the adoring ranks of saints and angels, and constrains
His gracious heart. He cannot resist it. He has
bound Himself in covenant to regard it.5 Everything
else shall give way, if need be, but it shall prevail.
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but not His word
of promise to a sinner.6
The fires of eternal vengeance stood still over Sodom
1
¹ Milton. Ref. in Eng. Book. I.
3
³ John xiii. 1; xiv. 1-3.
2 Heb. xiii. 8.
4 Phil. ii. 6-8.
5
John xiv. 13, 14.
• Matt. xxiv. 35.
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till Lot was gone out.1 The waves stood still, and the
depths were congealed in the heart of the sea till the
children of Israel passed over.2 The down-rushing
waters of swollen Jordan stood still, as the feet of the
priests touched their brim, and rose up as a wall till
the chosen tribes had gained their inheritance.3 At
the cry of Joshua, the sun stood still in the midst of
the heavens, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon,
until the Lord's hosts had avenged themselves upon
their enemies. And at the prayers and tears of Heze-
kiah, Time, whose onward urgency is the most in-
exorable of all things, not only stood still, but retreated.
Ten degrees backward did the shadow go on the
sun-dial of Ahaz, and fifteen years were added to the
life of the dying king.5
4
But ah, me! death is swifter than time, and hell
deeper than the sea, and God's wrath against sin
mightier than its waves, and fiercer than the fires of
Sodom; and can these be stayed? Yes, yes, since
Christ received all this wrath into His own soul, and
there exhausted it, even these stand still at the cry of
the weakest sinner praying in faith to Jesus Christ, or
in Christ's name. And if a little child even, do but
trust in Him, he may walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, singing as he goes this cheerful song
of defiance, O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave,
where is thy victory ?8 For, since the Messiah was
1 Gen. xix. 23, 24.
3 Josh. iii. 15-17.
2 Kings xx. I-II.
7 Mark ix. 23; Rom. viii. 31-39.
2 Exod. xv. 8.
4 Josh. x. 12, 13.
• Isa. liii. 6; John xix. 30.
8 Ps. xxiii. 4; 1 Cor. xv. 55.
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1
cut off, but not for Himself, He hath made an end
of sin, and brought in everlasting righteousness; the
Law is satisfied, and the head of the old Serpent
bruised.1
Then, let burdened sinners be of good heart and
come to Jesus Christ. Let them cry for mercy where
they will, their faith may be sure that Jesus Christ is
"standing still" just before them, looking kindly on
them, and ready to give them His blessing. He
passed that way that Bartimeus might cry to Him,
and He came on earth that we might all cry to Him.
for mercy. Our crying is the fruit of His coming, not
its cause. He came of His own grace, and we pray
because of our need. But we would have sat for
ever voiceless and despairing in our blindness, if His
coming had not filled our hearts with hope, and our
mouths with supplications.
The three evangelists united in saying that "Jesus
stood still," but now their expressions differ. Each
one sounds a note which the others do not wake, and
together they make a noble harmony. Do not fail to
notice the advantage of comparing Scripture with
Scripture. This is one of the most beautiful instances
I have found. Matthew says, "He called;" Mark,
"He commanded him to be called ;" and Luke, “He
commanded him to be brought unto Him." There
you have the three great steps in a sinner's effectual
calling illustrated. Bartimeus was called, Sovereignly,
by the voice of Christ; Instrumentally, by the voice
of men; and Efficiently, by the helping hands which
¹ Dan. ix. 24, 26; Gen. iii. 15.
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guided his willing steps to Jesus. So we may look
upon his call, and the gracious call of every sinner
who becomes a saint, in its divine Origin, its gentle
Instruments, and its effectual Aids.
I. "He called." Our vocation is of God. He hath
called us out of darkness into His marvellous light.1
The God of all grace hath called us unto His eternal
glory by Christ Jesus.2 Our calling is a holy calling,
a high calling, a heavenly calling.³ Its source is
divine grace, its rule the divine purpose, and it is the
fruit of election. We are chosen in eternity and called
in time.¹
"He called." This word of Matthew contains, as
in the seed, the expressions of Mark and Luke. All
the agencies, by which the soul is persuaded and en-
abled to embrace Jesus Christ freely offered to us in
the gospel, are hidden in this, His loving call, as the
leaves and flowers and golden fruit are all folded in
the germ. Many providences, many scriptures, many
ordinances, many movements of the Spirit may lay
hold on a soul to draw it to Christ; but they are all
so many threads which Christ holds in His own hand.
They have all their power from His drawing.
Then let us use this truth for holy fear. If you
resist the appeals of God's ministers, you resist God.
If you despise God's providences, you despise Him.
If you stifle the alarms of conscience, you are silencing
the Voice from heaven, which may speak to you no
11 Pet. ii. 9.
2 I Pet. v. 10.
3 2 Tim. i. 9; Phil. iii. 4; Heb. iii. 1.
* Gal. i. 15; Rom. viii. 30; 2 Tim. i. 9, 10.
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97
more till it speak in the thunders of the Judgment.
Oh, see that ye refuse not Him that speaketh from
heaven! He that despised Moses' law died without
mercy. And a sorer punishment-sorer than a death,
sure, bloody and merciless-is in reserve for all who
turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven. For
our God is a consuming fire.1
Let us also use this truth for holy encouragement.
Is it indeed Christ's voice that speaks by sacraments
and Sabbaths and gospel ministers? Then let faith
cry, The voice of my Beloved!2 and open the door,
and He shall come in and sup with us and we with
Him.3 We shall feed upon the promises, and His
fruit shall be sweet to our taste.4 Our hearts shall
burn within us, our sorrows be comforted, our burdens
lightened, our graces revived. A bundle of myrrh
shall He be to us, and a cluster of camphire from the
vineyards of En-gedi.6
5
"He called." In Jesus Christ we behold the best
of preachers—the Divine Exemplar after whom all
should copy.
While He lived on earth He called to men every-
where, saying, If any man thirst let him come unto
me and drink. In His zeal to proclaim the glad
tidings of salvation through faith in His name, any
spot became a pulpit, any lost sinner a sufficient
audience. He preached, indeed, in the temple fre-
quently, and in the synagogues habitually, all over
¹ Heb. x. 28, 29; xii. 25, 29.
3 Rev. iii. 20.
6 Song i. 14.
4
Song ii. 3.
7 John vii. 37.
G
2
Song ii. 8.
5 Luke xxiv. 32.
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the land; 1 but also in the street, on the mountain,
and on the strand; 2 as He walked by the way or sat
at meals;³ when the multitude broke in upon His
quiet retreat in the country, which He had sought
with His disciples, for a little needful rest, or when
the timid inquirer came to Him by night,5 or the
guilty woman of Samaria questioned Him as He sat
in weariness, at noon, on Jacob's well; 6 whether the
great ones of Church and State were arrayed before
Him, or the poor and the diseased, the publican and
the abhorred outcast besought His mercy. All moved
His pity. None were sent empty away.
He so exhausted that He could not give rest to the
heavy laden. Thirsting Himself, He gave to others
the cup of living water. On his way to the cross,
condemned, forsaken, scourged, and bleeding, He
tenderly addressed the mourning daughters of Jeru-
salem, and in the very anguish of death, He gave
eternal life to the penitent robber by whom He had
just been reviled.9
Never was
Such a Preacher was Christ: yet it was expedient
for us that He should go away. The purposed ends
of His personal ministry on earth were accomplished,
and it was needful that He should leave the world and
go to the Father, there to prepare a place for us, that
1 Luke xix. 47; iv. 16, 44.
2 Luke xiii. 26; Matt. v. 1; Luke xiii. 1, 2.
* Luke xxiv. 15, 27; Luke xiv.
5
" John iii. 1, 3.
7 Matt. xxxiii,; Luke vii. 36-50; xv.
• Mark vi. 31-34.
6 John iv. 6.
8 John iv. 10.
• Luke xxiii. 28, 40-43, with Matt. xxvii. 44.
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99
so He might come again, and receive us to Himself.1
But meantime, the preaching of the gospel was not to
cease.
II. "He commanded him to be called." The Lord
gave the word; great was the company of them that
published it.2 He did not leave Himself without a
witness, nor His people without a comforter.3 When
He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive,
and gave gifts unto men.4 Chiefest Gift, Chiefest
Witness, and Chiefest Comforter was the Holy Ghost.
But besides Him, and under His ministration, He
gave some, apostles; and some, prophets
some, prophets; and some,
pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints,
for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the
body of Christ.5
God having reconciled the world unto Himself by
Jesus Christ, hath given to us the ministry of recon-
ciliation, so that we are ambassadors for Christ, as
though God did beseech you by us; we pray you in
Christ's stead be ye reconciled to God. The divine
wisdom is clearly seen in this. The treasure is in
earthern vessels that the excellency of the power may
be of God, and not of us. If under the music and
thunder of angelic voices the soul was converted,
while the Sabbath air was fragrant with heavenly
odours and quivering with bright wings, our foolish
hearts, all enravished with the splendour of the vision,
and thrilling still to the celestial eloquence, would
¹ John xiv. 2, 3; xvi. 7, 28.
Acts i. 8; John xiv. 16–18.
Eph. iv. 11, 12.
6
2 Cor. v. 18-20.
7
2 Ps. lxviii. I.
Eph. iv. 8.
2- Cor. iv. 7.
Uor M
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ascribe to these flaming ministers the glory, saying,
By their might, by their power, and not by the Spirit
of the Lord!1 But when the worm Jacob threshes
the mountains,2 the Spirit is honoured, and Christ is
honoured, and men and angels cry together, Not unto
us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give
glory, for Thy mercy, and for Thy truth's sake.³
And so it must be. God cannot give His glory to
another. The saved must all be saved by grace, and
own it too.5 The shout of Grace! Grace! shall be
heard over every stone in the Heavenly Temple.6
So, too, do the preachers of the gospel stand before
the people as trophies of the grace they proclaim.
Therefore the preaching comes with the power and
tenderness of experience. "I preached," says Bun-
yan, "what I felt, what I smartingly did feel, even
that under which my poor soul did groan and tremble
to astonishment. Indeed, I have been as one sent to
them from the dead. I went myself in chains, to
preach to them in chains; and carried in my own
conscience that fire I persuaded them to beware of. I
can truly say, and that without dissembling, that when
I have been to preach, I have gone full of guilt and
terror, even to the pulpit door, and there it hath been
taken off, and I have been at liberty in my mind until
I have done my work." Oh, who cannot imagine the
tenderness, the inflamed earnestness and heart-melting
pathos with which he must then have preached!
1 Zech. iv. 6.
4 Isa. xlii. 8.
3 Ps. cxv. I.
2 Isa. xli. 14, 15.
5
2 Tim. i. 9.
6 Zech. iv. 7.
7 "Grace Abounding."
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ΙΟΙ
If we
"call" because Christ has "commanded,"
then are we servants of Christ, servants of the Church
for His sake, and servants of the gospel. Therefore
must we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus our
Lord.¹ As our calling sinners grows out of His call-
ing them, our great business is to repeat, expound,
and enforce His teachings. His Word is to be the
substance of our preaching,2 His Spirit our Helper,3
Himself our Exemplar.4 Then will He stand by us.5
When we speak from His mouth, He will speak by
our mouths. Through our voice of weakness will
sound His voice of power. When in heathen lands
we can but stammer brokenly, in a half-learned lan-
guage, the story of the Cross, He will be there, trans-
lating to the longing heart the glad tidings. When
we appear for Him, He appears in us.
Let him that heareth, say, Come!6 Then all the
called may themselves become callers. Some are
especially chosen and ordained to this work, but
every saint may have a share in it. O soul, once
sick unto death, hast thou found the great Physician?
Run quickly to thy dying neighbours, and tell them
what He has done for thee. Ah! how canst thou
help it. If thou canst hold thy tongue from publish-
ing His fame, thou deservest that it should stiffen in
eternal silence for its base selfishness and ingratitude!
III. And now what a word of good cheer the third
evangelist speaks" He commanded him to be
1 2 Cor. iv. 5.
3 Acts ii. 4; Eph. vi. 19.
• Matt. xxviii. 20.
2 2 Tim. iv. I, 2.
I
I Cor. xi. 1; 1 John ii. 6.
6 Rev. xxii. 17.
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brought unto Him!" Admire the Lord's grace to
the blind man. He will not leave him to grope his
dark way alone. Some shall lead him by the hand.
In whatever way, he shall have all the aid he needs to
come into the Saviour's very presence.
Blessed thought! that we who are but men may
have some share in this dear work of guiding blind
souls to Jesus. There is no dignity like it on this side
of heaven; no bliss like it to be tasted on earth. It
is worth living for, worth dying for, to guide one lost
sinner to his Redeemer.
But here I rather choose to think of the higher than
human aid, which Christ sends with His word to the
souls of His chosen. The energy of Almighty power
accompanies the preaching of the truth.1 The Spirit
and the Bride say, Come! 2 There is your hope and
our consolation. While we call from our pulpits,
Christ calls from heaven, and the Spirit calls in your
very hearts, At the word of Christ, we tell you of
your blindness; only the Spirit can convince you of
your blindness. We tell you of Christ; only the
Spirit can take of the things of Christ, and shew them
to you." 4 He alone can shine into your hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the
face of Christ.5 We can prophesy to the dry bones in
the Valley of Vision; only He can clothe them with
flesh and fill them with life, till they shall rise and go
forth a great army. When bidden, we can stretch
1 Eph. i. 17-20.
6
3 John xvi. 8, margin.
2 Rev. xxii. 17.
* John xvi. 15.
6
2 Cor. iv. 6.
Ezek. xxxvii. 1-10.
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103
out the rod over the sea; only He can make it a rod
of might, and send the strong wind which shall change
the sea to dry land. But all these this mighty Spirit
can do, and will do, at the will of Christ, for the word
of Christ.
Therefore we are of good courage. We are weak,
but our Helper is strong. We take the word of Jesus,
and while it seems but a word from human lips, the
Spirit makes it the power of God for salvation.2 It
suddenly becomes a two-edged sword, quick and
powerful, in the hands of Omnipotence. It pierces to
the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the
joints and marrow-almighty to accomplish the whole
sovereign will of Christ.³
Sinner, I charge you, remember the dreadful sanc-
tion Christ puts on the preaching of His ambassadors
in those words: He that despiseth you, despiseth Me,
and he that despiseth Me, despiseth Him that sent
Me.4 It is heavenly Wisdom that now cries, Turn
you at my reproof; behold I will pour out my Spirit
unto you. I will make known my words unto you.5
Beware, then, lest one day you hear that awful voice,
Because I have called, and ye have refused; I have
stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but
ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would
none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your
calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when
your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction
as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh
2 Rom. i. 16. 3 Heb. iv. 12; Isa. lv. 11
5 Prov. i. 23.
1 Exod. xiv. 16, 21.
4 Luke x. 16.
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upon you! Then shall they call upon me, but I will
not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall
not find me! 1
O Christ, I have preached the preaching Thou hast
bidden me. Honour Thine own word, and send Thine
effectual aids!
O Spirit of Jesus, glorify the truth in Jesus. Display
Thine almighty power, and lead these poor sinners to
Jesus Christ!
¹ Prov. i. 24-28.
.

VI.
"And they call the blind man, saying unto him, Be of good
And he, casting away
comfort; rise; He calleth thee.
his garment, rose and came to Jesus."

W
HAT a lively picture of gospel preaching!
The seeing hasten to the sightless and bid
them come to Jesus Christ. Men whose
eyes have seen the Lord, and whose ears
have heard His gracious words, go at His command,
to souls sitting in the region and shadow of death,1
and there proclaim aloud these joyful tidings.
The analogy would be perfect, if those who were
sent to Bartimeus had themselves been blind, until
their eyes had been opened by Christ. And who can
say that it was not so with some of them? Christ
had healed many blind men, and it is far from im-
probable that some of them followed Him ever after,
waiting to be sent on these joyful errands of grace.
O
Then with what generous indignation must they
have heard the cruel rebukes of the multitude!
gospel preachers, both lay and clerical-all who in
public or in private, in the pulpit or by the way-side,
have anything to tell to others of Christ's gracious.
dealings with your souls, remember the wormwood
and the gall2 of your lost estate, and let a righteous
1 Matt. iv. 16.
2 Lam. iii. 19.
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anger burn against the world, the flesh, and the devil,
against priest and pharisee, and every ungodly church
and professor, who would silence the cries of convicted
souls. Think of the woes of perishing sinners, and
let an honest zeal for their deliverance from ruin
kindle your heart and tongue against all the agencies
of hell, however disguised, baptized or consecrated,
who would drive even the meanest sinners-publicans
and harlots-from Jesus Christ. Feel as men once
rescued from a wreck would feel, if they saw, upon a
stormy sea, "swimmers in their agony" weakly grasp-
ing the icy shore, only to be inhumanly thrust back
into the wintry waves.
Then, too, with what alarmed sympathy would these
men, once blind, now seeing, have regarded Bartimeus,
if he had wavered in his earnestness after Christ!
What would they not have done to have roused him
again to his importunity? O gospel preachers, be it
so with you. Let your hearts melt with concern for
timid souls turning away from Christ through dis-
couragement. Oh that we could all say with Paul,
My little children, of whom I travail in birth again!
till Christ be formed in you!1 Oh that all ministers
and all Christians felt such anguish of love for halting
souls!
And with what alacrity would these messengers of
Christ have hastened to bear His words of welcome
to the blind man! Joy beyond expression would
have inspired them. I have heard of a caravan which
had lost its way in the desert. For days they could
1 Gal. iv. 19.
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107
find no water. The suffering was sore, and many
were perishing. Men were out in all directions
searching for the water that was to be indeed water
of life. At last, faint and ready to die, one man
lighted on a spring. Cool and clear the stream
Almost frantic with thirst, he
gushed from the rock.
rushed forward and drank, drank. Oh, how deep was
the bliss of that draught! Is it strange that for one
moment he thought only of himself? But suddenly
the perishing multitude came before his mind, and
he leaped up, and ran shouting, "Water! water!
Enough for all! Come and drink!" And so from
rank to rank of that scattered host he sped, until he
had told them all, and was himself thirsty again. But
when he saw the eager crowds rushing to the fountain,
when he beheld the refreshment and gladness of all
hearts and faces, and then stooped once more him-
self to drink the liberal stream, was not his second
draught full of deeper bliss than even the first? Had
he ever tasted such water as that? O blessed souls
who have drank of the river of life, lift up your voice
upon the mountains, and let your feet be swift upon
the plains, publishing the good tidings of salvation.¹
This brings to view the joyfulness of the gospel. It
is not a message of gloom, a thing to be whispered
in darkness as a dreadful secret. We dishonour the
gospel when we would recommend it by a melancholy
visage. We have not entered into its spirit, if, when
we would press its claims upon a friend, we go
stealthily aside, and hang our heads, and use lugu-
¹ Isa. lii. 7.
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brious speech, and seem like doleful culprits at the
confessional, instead of free citizens of the kingdom,
rejoicing in our coming inheritance of inconceivable
glory. When the hypocrites in Isaiah's time would
keep a fast, they bowed their heads as a bulrush, and
spread sackcloth and ashes under them.1 And in
Christ's day, they were of a sad countenance, and
disfigured their faces; but Christ rebuked this, and
required His disciples rather to wash their faces, and
anoint their heads, that even in keeping a fast, they
might lack none of the usual tokens of cheerfulness.²
Oh, the gospel is joyful! It found the race cower-
ing in despair by the forbidden tree, under the threat-
ened vengeance of Jehovah; and it will not leave
them, till the last of the chosen seed are exulting in
eternal song before their Father's Throne. When it
first visited our world, the earth was groaning and
travailing in the bondage of corruption. But the
Redeemer shall one day break these chains, and in-
troduce the burdened creation into the glorious liberty
of the children of God. It is already waiting for their
manifestation, and leaning forward in eager hope of
its own deliverance.3
The gospel gloomy! It is an anthem from the
harps of heaven, the music of the River of Life wash-
ing its shores on high, and pouring in cascades upon
the earth. Not so cheerful was the song of the morn-
ing stars, nor the shout of the sons of God so joyful.4
Gushing from the fountains of eternal harmony, it
1 Isa. lviii. 5.
2 Matt. vi. 16, 17.
³ Rom. viii. 19–23.
* Job xxxviii. 7.
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109
was first heard on earth in a low tone of solemn glad-
ness, uttered in Eden, by the Lord God himself.¹
This gave the key-note of the gospel song. Patriarchs
caught it up, and taught it to the generations follow-
ing. It breathed from the harp of psalmists, and
rang like a clarion from tower and mountain-top, as
prophets proclaimed the year of jubilee. Fresh notes
from heaven have enriched the harmony, as the Lord
of hosts and His angels have revealed new promises,
and called on the suffering children of Zion to be joy-
ful in their King.2 From bondage and exile, from
dens and caves, from bloody fields and fiery stakes
and peaceful death-beds have they answered, in tones
which have cheered the disconsolate, and made op-
pressors shake upon their thrones; while sun and
moon and all the stars of light, stormy wind fulfilling
His word, the roaring sea and the fulness thereof,
mountains and hills, fruitful fields and all the trees of
the wood have rejoiced before the Lord, and the
coming of His Anointed, for the redemption of His
people, and the glory of His holy name.³
The gospel gloomy! If the best right, and the only
right to be glad on earth, with the assured prospect of
eternal blessedness in heaven; if songs in the night +
and stars of promise; if the light of morning with its
fragrant breath and singing birds; if health for the
sick, return for the banished, pardon for the doomed,
and life for the dying; if love, joy, peace, hope; if
harp and crown and waving palm, and the everlasting
1 Gen. iii. 15.
3 Ps. xcviii. 11-13; cxlviii. 3, 8.
2 Ps. cxlix. 2.
4
• Job xxxv. 10.
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vision of the Redeemer's glory be gloomy, then is the
gospel gloomy!
Such is the spirit of the tidings these messengers
bring to Bartimeus, in this, his second gospel sermon.
The first told him simply that Jesus was passing by.
Now he hears these heart-reviving words, "Be of good
comfort; rise; He calleth thee."
"Be of good comfort." On thy long night, without
moon or star, or even a dim candle in thy dwelling,
the Day-star is dawning.1 Thine eyes have never
been used but for weeping; they seemed only made
for tears. But now they shall serve thee for seeing.
Thou shalt look upon earth and sky and all dear faces,
and even Christ thy Saviour. Rejoice, too, for thy
poverty and beggary are ended. Thou shalt work
with thy hands, and eat the bread of thine own honest
toil. Be of good heart. With Jesus for thy physician,
thou needst not fear. He never casts any away, and
He never fails. At His touch, how have we seen the
blind gaze, the dumb sing, the lame cast away their
crutches, and leap for joy, and even the dead awake
and live! 2
Sinners, poor, wretched, and blind, but crying for
the Saviour, be not disconsolate. "Be of good com-
fort." After your night of weeping, your morning of
joy has come.³ On your heart the Day-star is rising.4
Come to Jesus, and roam and grope and beg no more.
Do not fear to come. Oh, He is gracious! Oh, He
is mighty! His blood cleanseth from all sin.5 He is
2 Matt. xi. 5.
1 Luke i. 78; Rev. xxii. 16.
3 Ps. xxx. 5.
4 2 Pet. i. 19.
5. John i. 7.
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111
able to save to the uttermost.1 This is the work in
which His soul delighteth. None can measure His
love.2 It is stronger than death, even the death of the
Cross. And the satisfaction He desires for all the travail
of His soul, is just to pardon and cleanse guilty sinners.3
"Be of good comfort" then, and come to Jesus Christ.
"Rise!" say the preachers to Bartimeus, and so we
cry. There is salvation for the sinner, none for the
sluggard. There is pardon for all sin, except not
coming to Jesus. Whether from hatred, doubt, or
indifference, it is the same, if you will not rise and
come, you perish. Laziness is a slow devil. He looks
easy, and sometimes amiable. But none are more
obstinate, and few have carried more to
hell than he.
Not to love
Not to receive Christ is to reject Him.
Him is to hate Him and be anathema.5 How often
would I have gathered you, says Christ, as He weeps
over the doom of Jerusalem, but ye would not! 6 Ah,
that is the secret of damnation-Ye would not come
unto me that ye might have life. Rise, then, ye un-
pardoned. Away with your fears and doubts. They
are unreasonable and wicked. Break off your indif-
ference. It is a noiseless chain, indeed, but be not
deceived; the chain that does not clank is the tightest.
Let me take the trumpet of the Holy Ghost, and may
He fill it with a sound that shall pierce your heart;
Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and
Christ shall give thee light! 7
1 Heb. vii. 25. 2 Eph. iii. 19.
4
• John vi. 37, with v. 40.
6 Matt. xxiii. 37. 'Eph. v. 14.
Isa. liii. 1o, II.
I Cor. xvi. 22.
I 12
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"He calleth thee." What more canst thou want,
Bartimeus? If He calls thee, He will cure thee. If
He calls, who can forbid? His call would clear a
way for thee through all this multitude, if they should
oppose. All the devils in hell could not keep thee
back, poor, sightless, helpless man, if thy Saviour calls
thee.
Thy call is thy warrant. The call of Christ is
warrant enough for any sinner. He may use it
against the Law and Satan and his own evil con-
science. For example, Satan comes to him and
says,-
'What, wretch! art thou going to Christ ?"
"Ay, that I am, with all my heart."
"But will He receive thee?"
"Ay, that He will, with all His heart."
Truly, thou art a brave talker! Who taught thee
this lofty speech?"
"Nay, my speech is lowly, and I learned it of my
Lord."
"But where is thy warrant? None can go to Christ
without a warrant."
"He calleth me-be that my warrant!"
"But where is thy fitness?" says Satan, shifting his
ground.
"Be my warrant my fitness-He calleth me,"
answers the sinner, keeping his ground, his only
ground.
"But listen, soul! Thou art going before a King.
He cannot look upon iniquity;"1 (for you see Satan
1 Hab. i. 13.
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113
can quote Scripture,) "and thou art but a mass of
iniquity;" (here the devil affects a great horror of it,
to fill the sinner with fear.) "The heavens are not
clean in His sight; 1 how then shall thy filthiness
appear before Him? Look at thy rags, if thy blind
eyes will let thee, and say, what a dress is this to take
into His presence!"
"It is all true," says the contrite sinner, "still I will
go, for He calleth me. I will bind this call about me
and it shall be my dress, till He give me another. I
will hold up this call, written with His own hand, and
signed with His own name, and sealed with His own
blood, and it shall be my defence and plea. Miser-
able and unworthy as I am, and deserving, I know,
to die, with this I have boldness and access with
confidence, saying only, like little Samuel, Here am
I, for Thou didst call me!" 3
2
Casting away his
Bartimeus needed no more.
garment, he rose and came to Jesus." It could not be
otherwise. True earnestness does not wait. Conscious
wretchedness in the presence of a trusted Saviour
cannot delay. Only half-convictions can procrasti-
nate. Sinners who hang back and yet look forward,
longing and tarrying, hearing a thousand exhortations
but waiting for one more, have either shallow views of
sin or low views of Christ. I pray you take heed of
that; there is your trouble-shallow views of sin or
low views of Christ. Either you do not see your need
of such a Saviour, or you do not see Him to be the
Saviour you need. If you knew what a sinner you
1 Job xv. 15.
2 Eph. iii. 12.
3
1 Sam. iii. 6.
H
114
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are, and what a Saviour He is, you would go to Him
at once and be saved.
"A full conviction of sin," says John Owen,1 “is a
great and shaking surprisal unto a guilty soul." And
without such surprisals men will die in their carnal
security. Therefore, though the gospel is indeed a
message of gladness, its preachers must often preach
heavy and bitter things. The Old Testament ends
with the word "Curse," while the New begins with
this announcement, "The book of the generation of
Jesus Christ." But until this sound of an avenging
Law has rung dreadfully in the sinner's ears, little will
he care for the glad tidings of the gospel.
Would to God our message might ever sound in
music and not in thunder-that we might stand ever-
more on the green top of sunlit Gerizim, and never
again on the stormy height of gloomy Ebal 2—that
our doctrine might drop as the rain, and our speech
distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender
herb, and as the showers upon the grass! ³ But what
care they for refuge who have not heard of wrath? for
Calvary, who have never trembled under the blaze and
roar of Sinai? for pardon, who are not convinced of
sin? for the treasures hid in Christ, who say, I am
rich and increased with goods, and have need of
nothing; and know not, alas! that they are wretched
and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked! 4
If our hearers were all like Bartimeus, our message
might always begin, "Be of good comfort." If men
2 Deut. xi. 29.
1 On Heb. vi. 18.
3 Deut. xxxii. 2.
• Rev. iii. 17.
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115
felt their burdens, we would gently say, Come unto
me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I
will give you rest. If they were conscious of their
thirst, how joyfully would we cry, Ho, every one that
thirsteth, come ye to the waters!2 If they were already
cut to the heart with sharp convictions, and were cry-
ing to us, Sirs, what must we do to be saved? most
gladly would we answer, Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and ye shall be saved.³
It
We
The gospel is joyful, though it has one note of
terror-He that believeth not shall be damned.4
announces that there is no need of damnation.
may all be saved, if we will but believe. It does not
create our condemnation,5 we are condemned already.6
It finds us in chains and tells us how we may escape.
Am I not still the bearer of glad tidings, if I burst into
the cell of the doomed man and cry, Here is your pardon!
Come out at once, and you shall live! even if, as I
see him contentedly hugging his chain, or sinking back
into his stupid sleep, I seize him with rough kindness,
and cry out to him with an energy of love that seems
like fierceness, Rise and flee, or you perish! All who
are found within these walls, when the bell of doom
begins to toll, must die!
The ancient heathen had this saying:
the avenging deities are shod with wool."
"The feet of
Shod with
wool! Yes, they crept with noiseless steps, that
the touch that aroused might be the blow that de-
stroyed. It is not so with our merciful God. He
1 Matt. xi. 28.
2 Isa. lv. I.
↑ Mark xvi. 16.
5 John iii. 17.
3 Acts xvi. 29–31.
6
• John iii. 18.
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sounds an alarm that we may seek a refuge. His
thunder rolls along the distant horizon, that we may
take in sail and be ready for the storm, the storm
which would have burst upon us no less surely with-
out this gracious warning.
As Bartimeus rose to hasten to Jesus, he "cast away
his garment,” his locse upper robe. He would suffer
no hindrance. He may have thrown it aside uncon-
sciously, but it was the action of nature-nature in
earnest for some great end.
Let us take the lesson. If we would win Christ, we
must lay aside every weight, and the sin which so
easily besets us the sin we have daily wrapped
about us like our garment. We must forget those
things which are behind, and reach forth unto those
things which are before.2 Hearken, O daughter, and
consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own
people and thy father's house. So shall the King
greatly desire thy beauty; for He is thy Lord, and
worship thou Him.³
Cain sacrificed unto the Lord, but he could not cast
off his envy, and it soon constrained him to murder.
Balaam sighed for the death of the righteous; but
when he saw the wages of unrighteousness, they
seemed so goodly a garment, that he drew it around
him, and died a very different death indeed-slain by
the avenging sword of Israel, and mingling his blood
with the blood of those he had seduced into licentious-
ness and idolatry.5 Felix trembled as Paul preached;
¹ Heb. xii. I. 2 Phil. iii. 13
'Num. xxiii. 10; 2 Pet. ii.
Ps. xlv. 10, 11. Gen. iv. 3, 5, 8.
15; Num. xxxi. 8, 16.
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117
}
but procrastination was so wrapped about him that
he could not cast it off, and so he never came
to Christ.¹ When Herod heard John the Baptist,
he did many things, and heard him gladly; yet
when the stern prophet put forth his hand to tear
away the robe of lust, whose clinging poison was
eating into his soul, he bound him in prison and
murdered him, and died, at length, in exile and
shame.2 The young ruler came even running to
Christ, such was his eagerness for salvation; but a
searching word about his possessions suddenly stopped
him. He hesitated, he yearned for the blessing of
eternal life. He was so guileless, so full of virtue, so
ingenuous, so warm in his aspirations for immortal
purity and blessedness. He looked upon Jesus with
longing; Jesus looked upon him with love. Is it too
much to believe that they both wept? But ah! that
cloth of gold in which he had arrayed himself, and
which he wore in his high station with such grace and
pride—that jewelled robe seemed too precious to rend
and scatter to the poor; so he drew it slowly around
him, and went sorrowfully away, and it became, I fear,
his poor soul's winding-sheet! Ananias and Sapphira
professed the faith of Christ, joined the Church, and
even made a great sacrifice of their possessions for it;
but unable to cast off the garment of lying ostentation,
God touched it with His wrath, and consumed them.4
Judas was numbered with the twelve apostles, and
obtained part of their ministry; but he still wore the
2 Mark vi. 17, 20, 27.
• Acts v. I-II.
1 Acts xxiv. 25.
3 Mark X. 17–22.
118
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secret robe of avarice, and it grew to his very flesh,
and ate into his heart as a canker, and when his heart
was gone, he betrayed his Master, and hurried to
perdition.1
How do these cases
professors of religion!
worshippers of God may perish; Balaam and Felix,
that holy aspirations and fearful convictions may yet
end in destruction; Herod, that those who hear joy-
fully the most faithful preaching and go far in their
obedience, may yet be lost. The young man whom
Jesus loved proves the utter insufficiency of human
virtue without the grace of God.
search and condemn many
Cain shews that professed
Ah, more; how
much it is to be feared that that same word about
the possessions spoken to many in this day, who are
"running" most complacently in their profession,
would give them a check from which they would
never recover. And as to the sin of Ananias and
Sapphira it would seem that many modern Church
members think that the essence of the sin was in
selling the land at all, and laying any part of the price
at the apostles' feet! Oh, how should they be afraid,
who are content that souls now in hell should have
surpassed all their proofs of love to Christ and His
poor! Lastly, the perdition of the traitor rings an
alarm-bell in the ears, not only of all professors, but
all ministers, crying out that they, who have preached
the gospel to others, may themselves be cast away.2
There is yet one garment, which more than all
1 Acts i. 17; John xii. 6; Matt. xxvi. 14-16, 47-49;
xxvii. 5.
I Cor. ix. 27.
2
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119
others men hug about them, and that is self righteous-
ness. It is a miserable and filthy affair, a thing of
patch-work and rags.¹ But the blind sinner thinks it
fair and comely. He draws it about him in pride, and
his soul has comfort.
Some men toil all their lives to make it large and
clean and beautiful, and to set it richly with gems of
virtue and good works. Paul was a diligent worker
at this, and for a while he thought himself very suc-
cessful, and used to survey himself in the glass of the
law with great complacency. He counts over to us
seven fair colours that were woven into it, making it,
in his estimation, like a rainbow for beauty;-If any
other man thinketh he hath whereof he might trust in
the flesh, I more; circumcised the eighth day, of the
stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of
the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; con-
cerning zeal, persecuting the Church; touching the
righteousness which is in the law, blameless !2 On
all these he looked with great satisfaction, little know-
ing how blind he was, nor what a poor, unsightly
wretch in the eyes of God. But when the great light
from heaven shone upon him, and God opened his
eyes,³ he saw that he was vile, and had no righteous-
ness at all. He poured nothing but contempt on the
glory of his old pride.5 As he grew older he seemed
to delight to stain it more and more.6 At last, many
years after, he wrote a letter to his son Timothy, and
Acts ix. 1-18.
1 Isa. Ixiv. 6.
2 Phil. iii. 4-6.
5 Phil. iii. 7-9.
4 Phil. iii. 3.
• 1 Cor. xv. 9, with Eph. iii. 8, and 1 Tim. i. 15.
120
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confessed that all that time he was a blasphemer, and
a persecutor and injurious, and the chief of sinners.1
This garment must always be renounced when a
sinner would come to Jesus Christ. But it is very
hard to do. The old ploughman was right when he
told Hervey that it was harder to get rid of righteous
self than of sinful self. Hervey thought it a very ridi-
culous speech at the time, for he knew little of grace
then; but afterwards he learned in the school of Christ
that it was so indeed.
Some remainders of it, however—some shreds and
patches, hang about all saints on earth. And what is
very marvellous, even after they have seen and ab-
horred its filthiness, if God would suffer, they would
all fall too, and weave these rags together again, and
think them comely, and wear them in pride!
Job, who was one of the best of men, was once
found doing too much of this, (as you may see in
the twenty-ninth and thirty-first chapters,) when God
suddenly gave him a sight of himself in the mirror
of infinite majesty and sovereignty,2 and the sight so
overwhelmed him that he exclaimed, I am vile.³ Once
more God flashed the light of that terrible mirror upon
him, for He meant to make thorough work, and Job
cried out, I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the
ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee; wherefore I abhor
myself, and repent in dust and ashes.5
4
Oh that God may give us all grace to cast this
J 1 Tim. i. 13, 15, 16.
2 Job xxxviii., xxxix., and xl. 1, 2,
4 Job xl. 6-24, and xli.
Job xl. 3.
5
* Job xlii. 5, 6.
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121
wretched garment away, tearing it and stamping it in
the dust, that we may win Christ, and be found in
Him, not having our own righteousness, which is of
the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ,
the righteousness which is of God by faith!¹
1 Phil. iii. 8, 9.
i
!

RE
செ
VII.
"And Jesus answered and said unto him, What wilt thou
that I should do unto thee? The blind man said unto
Him, Lord that I might receive my sight!"
ARTIMEUS is at length at the feet of Jesus.
He cannot see Him yet, but he feels it
good to be there-there in the dust, there
in darkness.
And who ever found it otherwise? Oh, what
sorrows have been brought to the Saviour's feet—
shame, disappointment, bereavement, sickness of heart
and flesh, the stings of remorse, the inward burning of
divine wrath, the pains of utter despair! But who
that ever came in wretchedness did not here find
blessedness?
I do not mean now the blessedness of the final and
great relief, when heavenly light has streamed through
all the broken heart and healed it; but the blessedness,
simply, of having come to Jesus, the blessedness of
being consciously near Him.
All coming to Christ is good. While only the law
works, the sinner only suffers. The cliffs of Sinai are
falling. Heavy bolts from the thick darkness where
God is, break the heart.¹ But the gospel gives peace.
We joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by
1 Rom. vii. 7-13.

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123
The
whom we have now received the atonement.1
sun brightens and warms all who look upon it, though
they come from cold, foul caverns. And Christ is a
Sun. He gives grace and glory to the most miserable
of sinners and His bitterest enemies, if they look to
Him in faith.2 If the bruised and aching heart be
brought within the shining of the Cross, its beams
will glide into it, and fill it with secret refreshments.
There is comfort in resolving to flee to Christ, comfort
in fleeing, comfort in falling at His feet. I trow
Bartimeus was never so truly happy before, and yet he
is still a beggar, lying in unrelieved blindness in the
dust at the feet of Jesus of Nazareth.
The feet of Jesus! There the sinner finds all that
the needs of his own soul, all that the demands of the
law, all that the perfections of God require. There
he sees the Antetype of all the types, the Substance of
all the shadows, the Fulfilment of all the promises.
There his guilt is pardoned, his foulness cleansed, his
person accepted. For there is at once the Priest and
the Sacrifice, the blood of sprinkling and the way into
the Holiest of all. There is the true Mercy-seat and
the Shekinah—the visible glory of the Divine presence
between the cherubim. There God is manifest in the
flesh.5
This
At the feet of Jesus none need be afraid.
beggar drew "near." In Him we have boldness and
access with confidence through the faith of Him.6 It
1 Rom. v. II.
8 Heb. ix. II−14; X. 19–22.
5
I
Tim. iii. 16.
2 Ps. lxxxiv. II, with Mal. iv. 2.
4 Exod. xxv. 22.
6 Eph. iii. 12.
124
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
is impossible to press too near to Christ.
In the
song the Spouse is seen coming up from the wilder-
ness leaning upon her Beloved.¹ Like John at the
Supper, we may rest upon His very breast.2 The good
Shepherd loves to see His sheep lying near His feet,
and when the lambs are weary He carries them in His
bosom.3
In the days of His flesh His invitation was ever-
more, Come unto me! 4 The exiled leper heard, and
burst through all to come into His presence and fall
at His feet.5 The multitudes heard, and again and
again did they "throng" Him, "press" upon Him.6
But so far was He from being offended, that, though
they were poor and covered with disease, loathsome to
sight and touch, He healed them all. Publicans and
sinners heard, and even while He and His disciples
sat at meat, they came and sat with them.8 So freely
did He receive them and mingle with them, that He
was sneeringly called, The Friend of publicans and
sinners. They meant it for shame, but He took it for
glory. The ruined outcast heard-ah! who can ever
forget that tender scene of grace, in which He so vin-
dicates and blesses the polluted woman, who, in the
bitterness of her contrition, came unbidden to the feast
of the haughty Pharisee, and regardless of surprise and
contempt, began to wash His feet with her tears, and
did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed
¹ Song viii. 5.
4
* John xiii. 23,
♦ Matt. xi. 28; Mark x. 14; John vii. 37.
• Luke viii. 19, 45.
8 Matt. ix. 10, II.
8 Isä. xl. II.
5 Luke v. 12.
• Matt. xii. 19.
• Matt. xi. 19.
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125
His feet, and anointed them with the ointment of her
broken alabaster box!1 And who can cease to remem-
ber, with grateful amazement, those words by which
the vilest may draw near to His heart: Whosoever
shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and
my sister and mother.2
But do you say, Christ is no longer on earth, and we
cannot go to Him thus?
3
He has indeed passed into the heavens, and they
have received Him until the times of the restitution of
all things. But His tender heart went with Him. He
hath an unchangeable Priesthood, and He is the same
yesterday, to-day, and for ever, still a merciful and faith-
ful High Priest, still touched with feeling for our infir-
mities. When of old the children of Israel watched
the high priest on the the Day of Atonement, did their
comfort die when he disappeared behind the veil?
Did they not remember with joy that he was there
completing his great work of propitiation for their
sins? that their names were graven on the breast-
plate which he wore on his heart? and that while
he stood before the blood-sprinkled mercy-seat, in
the presence of that awful glory, covered but not
stricken by it, he stood as the Representative of a
freely justified people?5 Even so Christ has entered
into heaven itself, the true Holy of holies, now to
appear in the presence of God for us.6 Wherefore He
is able to save them to the uttermost that come to
3 Acts iii. 2.
2 Mark iii. 35.
1 Luke vii. 36-50.
4 Heb. vii. 24; xiii. 8; ii. 17; iv. 15.
5 Lev. xvi.
• Heb. ix. 24.
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BLIND BARTIMEUS.
God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make inter-
cession for them.1
Years after He had taken His seat on His Throne,
when He was closing the Canon of Scripture, when all
seemed finished and ready for the final seal of God's
dreadful malediction against him who should add to
the words of the Holy Ghost, or take from them,² He
stretched forth His hand and held back the curse until
one more invitation, full, blessed, universal, poured
from His heart. The Spirit and the Bride say, Come.
And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him
that is athirst come: and whosoever will, let him take
the water of life freely.3
"And when he was come near, Jesus answered."
Bartimeus now, for the first time, receives the word
immediately from the lips of his Lord. He is at the
Well-head of life, and as he stoops to drink, the stream
gushes toward him.
4
It is always so. If we would commune with Christ,
we must draw near to Him. If we would hear His
voice, we must fall down before Him. It is only there
that heaven and earth may meet in peace. Christ is
the true Tabernacle of the Congregation, or, as that
Old Testament expression may be more literally and
instructively rendered, The Tabernacle of Meeting-
the divinely appointed Meeting-place; first and chiefly
where God would meet His people, and they should
meet Him, and so meet one another. Coming from
all the vast circumference of Israel, there they met
2 Rev. xxii. 18, 19.
4 Exod. xxxiii. 7.
1 Heb. vii. 25.
8 Rev. xxii. 17.
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127
and found themselves one, at that holy centre, bright
with the visible glory of the Godhead and the clear
types of atoning grace.
Calvary is a little hill to the eye, but it is the only
spot on earth that touches heaven. The Cross is
foolishness to human reason, and a stumbling-block
to human righteousness; 1 but there only do Mercy
and Truth meet together, and Righteousness and
Peace kiss each other.2 Jesus Christ was a man of
low condition, and died a death of shame on an ac-
cursed tree; but there is salvation in no other.
is no Mercy-seat in the universe but at His feet.
But, lying there, we shall not only be accepted, but
shall not lack some gracious word from His lips
There the broken heart shall hear its best music-a
still small voice, it may be, but God will be in the
voice, and the contrite spirit shall be revived.5
4
There
"What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?" A
goodly word, indeed! What would not a soul, strug-
gling in the depths and entanglements of sin, give once
to hear it from his Lord? Let us admire,
I. The fulness of the grace. The tender love of
Christ to lost souls is a great deep, without bottom
and without shore. The wing of no angel can bear
him so high that he can look over all its extent. The
guilt of no sinner has been able to sound all its depth.
The countless multitudes who have been washed in its
waters, have not diminished its abundance nor im-
paired its virtue.
1 1 Cor. i. 23.
4 1 Kings xix. 12.
2 Ps. lxxxv. IO.
Isa. lvii. 15.
8 Acts iv. II, 12.
128
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
King Ahasuerus said unto Queen Esther at the
banquet of wine, What is thy petition? and it shall be
granted thee: and what is thy request? even to the
half of my kingdom shall it be performed.¹ And so
the monarchs of the East delighted to speak. But
their utmost promise was half the kingdom, and their
kingdoms were earthly, bounded and unsubstantial,
and their pompous generosity often but the flourishing
rhetoric of lust, pride, and wine.
But Jesus puts no limit to His offers. Ask, it shall
be given you. Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy
may be full. Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name,
that will I do.2 In Him are all the treasures of wisdom
and knowledge.3 All power is given unto Him in
heaven and in earth.4 He is the head of all power.5
All things were created by Him and for Him.6 In
Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.7
His word can open heaven to the vilest sinner: yea,
His smile can make a heaven in the saddest heart. A
crust from Him is a feast, and the feast which He shall
spread in heaven for His saints shall banquet the soul
through eternity. He is Heir of all things, and at
the believing call of the meannest beggar, He will
make that beggar a joint-heir with Him,9 to an inheri-
tance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not
away 10-an exceeding and eternal weight of glory.11
When we are Christ's, Christ is ours; and then all
1 Esther v. 6.
8
2 Matt. vii. 7; John xvi. 24; xiv. 13.
Matt. xxviii. 18.
7 Col. ii. 9.
5 Col. ii. 10.
8 Heb. i. 2.
3 Col. ii. 3.
6 Col. i. 16.
10
• Rom. viii. 17.
Ι
I Pet. I. 4.
11 2 Cor. iv. 17.
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129
things are ours-apostles, Scriptures, dispensations,
ordinances, life and death, this world and the next,
things present and things to come; all are ours.¹
Well might the apostle count all things loss for Christ.2
Such loss is infinite gain. With the Lord Jesus Christ,
afflictions are blessings, shame is honour, sickness is
health, and death is life for evermore; out of weakness
we are made strong,³ in solitude we have the best com-
pany; our poverty turns to the true riches, our crosses
to the sweetest comforts; nature gives way to grace,
and grace issues in eternal glory.
II. Let us also admire the freeness of Christ's offers
to lost sinners. The freeness of the offer springs from
the fulness of the grace. "What wilt thou?" Choose
for thyself, Bartimeus. If thou dost not carry away a
noble gift, it is thine own fault. I do not set bounds
to thy desires. The treasure is infinite, and thou hast
it all to choose from.
The Spirit of the Lord is not straitened, and if we
are, it is in ourselves.4 The Lord's hand is not short-
ened, neither is His ear heavy; but our iniquities 5—
ah, there is the trouble! And no sin hides God's
face sooner, or behind a darker cloud, than our un-
belief. God's grace is always larger than man's de-
sire, and freer than his faith. We continually need
His exhortation to Israel, Open thy mouth wide, and
I will fill it. One prayer should be ever on our lips,
Lord, increase our faith!8 If this day our fleece is
1 1 Cor. iii. 21-23.
I
2 Phil. iii. 7.
3 Heb. xi. 34.
4 Mic. ii. 7; 2 Cor. vi. 12.
5 Isa. lix. 1, 2.
6
Eph. iii. 20.
7
Ps. lxxxi. 10.
8 Luke xvii. 5.
I
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dry, it is not because there is no dew in heaven, nor
because none fell last night.¹ If we take little pitchers
to the well, we shall carry little water away. Though
the golden bowl be full of golden oil, the lamp will
burn dim, if the golden pipe be narrow or choked.2
The ocean itself can pour but a scanty stream through
a slender channel. And when sinners cry, I have no
grace, it is because unbelief has shut up their bosoms.
Or when the people of God cry, My leanness! my
leanness !3 it is because their narrow faith suffers
them only to taste where they might drink-only to
snatch crumbs with the dogs, while they might sit
down with the children at the table, and feast on all
the savoury things with which Christ spreads His board.
"Whosoever" and whatsoever are two precious
words often in the mouth of Christ. Whosoever will,
may come. Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name,
that will I do.5 "Whosoever" is on the outside of the
gate, and lets in all who choose. "Whatsoever" is on
the inside, and gives those who enter the free range of
all the region and treasury of grace. "Whosoever"
makes salvation free, "Whatsoever" makes it full.
""
III. See how Christ's grace condescends to every
soul's peculiar need. He will suit His granting to our
asking. To every soul He says, "What wilt thou ?”
It is marvellous and beautiful to observe how
various are the voices of free grace. "I am thirsty,"
says one. "Come to the waters," she cries.6 "I am
3 Isa. xxiv. 16.
2 Zech. iv. 2, 12.
5
'John xiv. 13.
1 Judges vi. 40.
4 Rev. xxii. 17; John vii. 37.
6 Isa. lv. I.
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131
hungry," says another. "Then eat ye that which is
good," she says, "and let your soul delight itself in
fatness."1 "But I am poor, and have nothing to buy
with." "Come, buy wine and milk without money,
and without price."2 "We are weary," sigh the la-
bourers in the sun-beaten fields. tr 'Come unto me,"
breathes her answer like a breeze from the waters,
"and I will give you rest."8 Cast thy burden upon
the Lord, and He will sustain thee," she whispers to
the pilgrim ready to faint on the highway. "Behold
the fountain," she cries to the guilty, "the Fountain
opened for sin and uncleanness."5 To the lost she
cries, "I am the Way;" to the ignorant, "I am the
Truth;" to the dying, "I am the Life."6 How large
her welcome to the sinner, how soothing her consola-
tions to the mourner, how inspiring her tones to him
that is faint of heart! There is no disease for which
she has not a remedy, no want for which she has not
a supply; and every one who applies to her shall con-
fess at length, "It is enough; I am blessed as if all the
methods and riches of grace were for me alone!"
IV. This question teaches that, though Christ knows
what we want and what He will do, He will have
us express our wants.
Prayer is not giving information to God; that His
Omniscience does not need:7 nor does it change His
will; that His Immutability cannot suffer.8 It does
not awaken His grace, for it is from everlasting; nor
* Matt. xi. 28.
John xiv. 6.
1 Isa. lv. 2.
+ Ps. lv. 22.
7 Matt. vi. 8.
2 Isa. lv. I.
Zech. xiii. I.
8 James i. 17.
6
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increase it, for it is infinite. But it opens a way for
grace to flow according to its own eternal plan. It is
faith's answer to Christ's question, "What wilt thou?”
It lives only as grace quickens it, and speaks only as
grace teaches it. There is no true prayer till God
pours out His Holy Spirit-the Spirit of grace and
supplications. He is first the Spirit of grace, im-
planting holy affections, and then the Spirit of suppli-
cations, turning these affections into earnest desires,
which breathe from the heart in prayer, even as the
same Spirit helpeth our infirmities.2
Through all the cold, dark night the petals of the
flower were shut. So the sun found it, and poured
his rays upon it, till its heart felt the warmth. Then
it yearned to be filled with these pleasant beams, and
opened its bosom to drink them in. And so it is with
man's prayer and God's grace.
"The blind man said unto Him, Lord, that I might
receive my sight!" How prompt and to the point is
this answer. Let sinners and saints learn from it to
distinguish among their wants, and keep their greatest
needs uppermost.
Bartimeus lacked many things,
and Christ's question has given him a wide range, but
we hear only, "My sight! my sight!"
How pointless are the prayers we often hear. They
scatter weakly over the whole ground. They have no
aim and do no execution. It may be a time of declen-
sion or revival, a day of thanksgiving or fasting, it
may be family worship or a church-business meeting
-it matters not; you shall hear pretty much the same
1 Zech. xii. 10.
2 Rom. viii. 26.
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133
prayer. And if you come back five years after, you
shall find the good man still going over his old beat, as
if the Church and the world and he had made no pro-
gress, and suffered no change.
We
I learned that
If we would pray well, we must have something to
We must know
pray for something we really crave.
our wants, feel our wants, express our wants.
must have "an errand at the Throne."
expression from a pious old slave. He was asked the
secret of the fervour and spirit with which he always
prayed. "Oh," said he, "I always have an errand at
the Throne, and then I just tell the Lord what I come
for, and wait for an answer." Thus, too, shall we wait
for an answer. Suppose Bartimeus, after kneeling in
the dust, and raising his bitter cry, "Lord, that I might
receive my sight," had then turned from Christ and
said, “Well, I have prayed; now I will beg a little;"
and so, rising from his knees, he goes begging through
the whole crowd. Would he not deserve that the
insulted Saviour should spurn his prayer, and seal his
blindness to him for ever? But what else do we,
when after the false fervours of our shallow prayers, we
dry our eyes, and go wandering after every earthly
gain and pleasure? when we do not watch for an
answer and wait for its coming? Even the sports-
man, who cares not for his game, follows the arrow
with his eye, till he sees it strike.
But how many
never cast a second glance after a prayer which has
left their lips!
But Bartimeus did not, could not, turn away from
Christ. If his lips do not still cry, "My sight! my
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་ ་ ་
sight!" a mightier prayer than lips can utter is going
forth from his heart. You may see it in the whole
attitude the clasped hands, the out-stretched neck,
the up-turned face in a very agony of longing, the
panting breast, beaten inwardly by the tumultuous
heart, the sightless balls "rolling in vain” to find the
day, and straining toward Jesus, as if they would force
a pathway for light!
The
Not long "in vain," O blind man, not long!
morning cometh. The Sun is about to rise upon thee
with healing in His wings!¹
1 Mal. iv. 2.

VIII.
"So Jesus had compassion, and touched his eyes, and said
unto him, Receive thy sight: go thy way: thy faith hath
saved thee."

(6
S
O Jesus had compassion;" surely not then
for the first time, but then it was more
manifest-its proofs were given. There
was fragrance in the alabaster box before
it was broken by the violence of love, but then its
ointment poured forth, and its precious odours filled the
room.1 Such holy violence there is in prayer, and so
God's treasured blessings are obtained. Christ's secret
pity begets our petitions, which then His open com-
passion accepts and crowns. Jesus loved Martha and
her sister and Lazarus, when
stood at the grave he wept.2 And we may believe that
whenever the sad fruits of sin were thus before Him,
His face gave token of His heart. Then the love which
brought Him to die, that He might redeem, would stir
more mightily within His soul, and overflow in looks
and words and deeds of pity. It was at such a moment
that Matthew was moved to make the record, "Jesus
had compassion."
"And touched his eyes."
1 Mark xiv. 3.
far away; but when He
This was not of necessity,
2 John xi. 5, 35.
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as if His blessing could not flow without a medium,
but in lowliness and kindness.
He could have healed with a word merely, or, if He
had pleased, without a word, and far off as well as near.
But He generally chose some outward instrumentality.
He put clay on the eyes of the man blind from his
birth, and sent him to wash in the pool of Siloam.¹ He
had the stone taken from the sepulchre of Lazarus
before He cried, "Come forth!"2 He multiplied the
loaves and fishes already at hand, instead of astonish-
ing the multitude by a pure creation.³
His lowly spirit is seen in this; for thus His miracles
were shorn of some of the rays most dazzling to sense.
He remembered that though He was the Fellow of
Jehovah,4 He had now become His Servant, and He
dealt prudently.5 Though He was over all, God bless-
ed for ever, He was now manifest in the flesh, and,
as became Him, He veiled His uncreated splendour,
and modestly wrought His glorious works.
6
7
But while there was the hiding of His power from
the multitude, He the more revealed His kindness to
His patients. When the leper found that Christ
dreaded no pollution, even ceremonial, from his touch;8
when the deaf man, who could not hear His words,
felt His fingers in his ears; when the poor woman,
whom Satan had kept so cruelly bent for eighteen
years, felt the hands of One mightier than the old
1 John ix. 6, 7.
• Zech. xiii. 7.
9
2 John xi. 39.
3 John vi. 11.
5 Isa. lii. 13.
7 Hab. iii. 4.
9 Mark vii. 33.
• Rom. ix. 5; 1 Tim. iii. 16.
8 Mark i. 41.
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137
Tyrant, laid lovingly upon her; 1 doubtless their very
flesh thrilled at the touch, and their faith was made
strong to believe all that He had promised.
Who does not envy Bartimeus that gentle resting of
the fingers of Jesus on his eyes? Rather let us strive
to feel His blessed Spirit in our hearts, and we shall
taste a sweetness which will leave no room for envy.
"And said, Receive thy sight." An echo from
within the Veil! "Lord, that I might receive my
"Receive thy
sight!" cried the suppliant without.
Weak and
sight!" answers the Sovereign within.
tremulous, with its burden of anguish, is the voice from
the dust. Clear and joyous, with power and blessing,
is the Voice from the Throne. I call that goodly music,
He
O friends! The Eternal Spirit is its Author.
searcheth all things, even the deep things of God,2 and
finding there what the Father designs to give, He
teaches us to desire and ask accordingly. His in-
tercession within us is "according to God," says the
apostle; that is, "according to the will of God," rightly
supply the translators.3 And so, if Christ suits His
granting to our asking, it is because the Spirit has
first shaped our asking to His granting. The pur-
pose of grace is the foundation of the prayer of faith.
Eternal grace is the mould into which faith is cast.
Therefore there is harmony between faith and grace.
"Grace crowns what grace begins.”
If all sinners and
Oh, to hear more of that music!
all saints would thus cry together to heaven, our earth
would hear such voices ringing in the air above it, as if
1 Luke xiii. 13, 16. 2 I Cor. ii. 10.
3 Rom. viii. 27.
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the heavenly host had again come down, harping and
praising with the notes of "Peace," and "Glory," as of
old above the plains of Bethlehem.1
Go thy way." There is but one word in the Greek
for these three. It is a mere formula of dismission in
peace.
"Thy faith hath saved thee." In our English Bibles
we read this expression in Luke, but in Mark, "Thy
faith hath made thee whole." Both answer, however,
to one phrase in the original, and should not differ in
the translation. Yet there is little to choose between
them.
"Save" is the exact rendering of the Greek
word, but "making whole" is one form of saving. There
are many kinds and degrees of salvation, even as the
evils vary from which we need deliverance. This man's
malady was physical, and he was saved by the healing
of his flesh. If this was all, the more general word,
"save," would here take its special meaning, "to make
whole." If, however, he was also, up to this moment,
an unpardoned sinner, he needed a great spiritual de-
liverance and healing. And if this too was granted as
his eyes were opened, then he was (6 made whole" in the
highest sense, saved wholly and for ever from the
double curse under which he suffered.
However this may have been, it is enough for us
that his salvation was by his faith. God has linked
faith and salvation together by more than "hooks
of steel," even by His unchangeable decree. No
decrees of God are more certain than these: He that
believeth shall be saved; and, He that believeth
1 Luke ii. 13, 14.
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139
not shall be damned.¹ He that believeth is passed
already from death to life,2 while he that believeth not
is condemned already.³ The moment of faith is the
moment of stepping from the region of the curse to the
region of the blessing. The region of unbelief is black
with God's frown, and filled with plagues and wrath;
but the region of faith is as the floor of heaven for
brightness. Christ's righteousness shelters it, the
graces of the Spirit beautify it, and the eternal smile of
God comforts and glorifies it. These regions may be
near together and touch like circles; and while a man
is stepping from one to the other, he may feel both joy
and anguish ;-Lord, I believe !-help Thou mine
unbelief! 4
Unbelief is a devil. He was born in hell, and reigns
there. With one hand he ever keeps his hold on hell,
while with the other he has seized the earth and
wrenched it from its sphere, and he is always striving
to drag it down into his own blackness and ruin. But
the hand of faith takes hold of heaven. What wonder,
then, that our poor world ever trembles and wavers so,
in the struggle of these mighty powers?
And thus it is that "faith saves." There was
nothing in this blind man's soul that could open his
eyes, but through grace there was something in him
that could take hold of Christ.
And so "faith saves" and grace saves;5 faith as the
instrument, and grace as the divine efficiency; faith
the channel, and grace the heavenly stream; faith the
3
³ John iii. 18.
1 Mark xvi. 16.
• Mark ix. 24.
2 John v. 24.
5 Eph. ii. 5.
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finger that touches the garment's fringe, and grace the
virtue that pours from the Saviour's heart.¹ Faith
cannot scale the dreadful precipice from which nature
has fallen, but it can lay hold on the rope which grace
has let down even into its hands from the top, and
which it will draw up again with all the burden faith
can bind to it. And this is all the mystery of faith's
saving. Christ reaches down from heaven, and faith
reaches up from earth, and each hand grasps the
other; one in weakness, the other in power. Yea, the
hand of faith is often but a poor, benumbed hand,
stretched out in anguish from the dark flood where
the soul is sinking.
Neither faith nor grace saves alone; grace will not,
faith cannot. Therefore is salvation by faith, and
salvation by grace. Yet grace has the highest place.
When brought together, grace is the efficiency and
faith the medium for its flow; saved, says Paul, by
grace through faith.2 And even faith is of grace.
Salvation (or the promise which contains it), says
Paul again, is of faith, that it might be of grace, and to
the end, he argues, that it may be sure.3 That all may be
sure, all must be given. Whatever is of me is uncer-
tain; whatever is of God cannot fail. Therefore my
faith, which receives salvation, is not left to be my
work; it is one of the fruits of the operation of God.
Thus, while there must be faith, there will be, if there
is grace. And so it turns out, after all, that salvation
is all of grace. Blessed be God for that! Of myself
I had no more power to believe than to love, or be
1 Luke viii. 44, 46. 2 Eph. ii. 8.
8 Rom. iv. 16.
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141
holy, or clothe myself with righteousness and walk
into heaven. For my carnal mind was enmity against
God. It was not subject to the law of God, nor,
indeed, could it be.¹ But God, who is rich in mercy,
for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when
we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with
Christ.2
1 Rom. viii. 7.
2 Eph. ii. 4, 5.
1

RE
IX.
"Immediately he received his sight."
N these words we reach that point in this
history where all its lines of interest meet—
that wonderful moment when the power
of Jesus wrought miraculously on the eyes
of Bartimeus, and he was blind no more.
How much was crowded into that moment! The
accomplished purpose of loving-kindness, and the
answered prayer of misery; the true Light shining,
and the darkness not failing now to comprehend it ;¹
the Saviour's power and grace victorious, and the
helpless sinner the subject of a change so immediate,
so amazing, and so blessed, that from this moment he
rejoiced to be bound in the free captivity of Jesus;
while so clear was the shining of Deity in all that was
done, that not only was the Son of Man glorified
thereby, but the beams shot far up and rested on the
invisible Throne. For "Bartimeus followed Jesus in
the way, glorifying God; and all the people, when
they saw it, gave praise unto God."
Nor shall we, I trust, be able to refrain from "glori-
fying" with Bartimeus, and “praising" with the multi-
tude; saying, Surely this is fruit worthy of the Tree of
Life, on whose boughs it shall for ever hang, mirrored
1 ¹ John i. 5.

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143
by the River of God and admired by all who sing of
the work and death of Jesus!
Oh for a breath upon my soul from that eternal shore,
that I may not utterly fail in speaking of this gracious.
mystery!
I. What, then, does this healing stand for in the
higher, spiritual world?
Surely, nothing less than Regeneration-the new
birth of the soul. Of the many images employed by
the Holy Ghost to set forth our natural state, perhaps
none is more frequent than blindness. Darkness is
ever the chosen symbol of the kingdom of Satan, and
light of the kingdom of God. Darkness, corruption,
and death are used interchangeably; and so are light,
purity, and life. Satan is the Prince of Darkness, his
dwelling is under darkness,¹ his power is to blind all
who follow him,2 and they, too, are at last cast into outer
darkness,³ a land of darkness, as darkness itself, where
even the light is as darkness. But God is light, and in
Him is no darkness at all. He is the Father of lights.
He dwelleth in the light which no man can approach
unto.6 His children are children of light." They walk
in the light, even as He is the light,8 and are them-
selves light in the Lord.9 Christ's mission, therefore,
is often set forth as an opening of the eyes of the blind.10
He came that they which see not, might see.11
Most naturally, therefore, is the new birth described
1
¹ Jude 6.
4 Job. x. 22.
7
I Thess. v. 5.
10 Isa. xlii. 7.
2 2 Cor. iv.
5
I John i. 5.
8 1 John i. 7.
4.
11 John ix. 39.
8 Matt. xxii. 13.
8
1 Tim. vi. 16.
9
Eph. v. 8.
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1
as a transition from darkness to light, a translation
from the kingdom of Satan to the kingdom of God's
dear Son.¹ Thus Paul sets the natural and gracious
states of the Ephesians in vivid contrast; Ye were
some time darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord.2
Thus, too, Christ connects the symbol with its reality,
in sending Paul to the Gentiles, to open their eyes, and
turn them from darkness to light, and from the power
of Satan unto God.3
The suitableness of these symbols needs no vindica-
tion. Every heart feels their fitness. They have gone
into all languages and all mythologies. I have forgot-
ten whose thought it is, that no man ever set forth
purity or blessedness, truth, glory or God, under the
image of darkness; nor could light ever have seemed
the fit image of evil or death.
By Christ's constant miracles of healing the blind,
and by the constant use of them in setting forth the
mystery of regeneration, the Holy Ghost teaches us
three important lessons.
1. That the new birth is from God. If the harp be
broken, the hand of the maker may repair it, and wake
the chords again to their old power and sweetness.
There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will
sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will
not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the
earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground, yet
through the scent of water it will bud and bring forth
boughs like a plant.4
1 Col. i. 13.
9 Acts xxvi. 18.
2 Eph. v. 8.
4
♦ Job xiv. 7-9.
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145
But who can restore the shattered crystal, so that
the sunbeams shall stream through it without finding
a flaw, and flash, once more, as of old, in the ever-
changing play of their splendour?
And who can open the eyes of the blind? Who can
restore to that most lustrous and precious of gems, its
expression and power, when distorted and blotted by
disease or violence? Who shall open again those
delicate pathways for the light of two worlds-the outer
world shining in and filling the soul with images of
beauty, and that inner world shining out in joy, love,
and thankfulness? Surely none but the Maker of this
curious frame, who, when sin had so cruelly marred it,
came in compassion as infinite as His might, to be
Redeemer and Restorer where He had already been
Creator. Only He can open the eyes of the blind.
The power of God is in that work.
But if a man die shall he live again ?1 Oh, if the soul
be dead, dead in guilt and corruption and the curse of
Almighty God, can it revive? Yes, thanks be to God!
by reason of the working of His mighty power, which
He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the
dead,² (after He had been delivered for our offences,³)
we also may be quickened, who were dead in tres-
passes and sins, and children of wrath, we may be
quickened together with Christ; for we are His work-
manship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.4
Then let men beware how they disparage God's
glory in the regeneration of human souls. If it was
1 Job xiv. 14.
2 Eph i. 19, 20.
* Rom. iv. 25.
K
4 Eph. ii. 1, 3, 5, 10.
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blasphemy without forgiveness to ascribe the miracles
of Jesus to the working of Satan,¹ their sin is not
easily measured who ascribe this higher work on
man's ruined soul, of which those bodily cures were
but types, to any power but that of God. Not by
eloquence, not by ordinances, not by the soul's own
resolution, not by God's holy truth itself, without the
added and immediate power of the Holy Ghost, is
the soul born again. To Him, then, be the undivided
glory!
2. In the light of this miracle we also learn that,
whatever activities the sinner may put forth before and
after his regeneration, in the great change he is passive.
Under the moving of the Spirit he may, like Barti-
meus, cry for the blessing before it comes; like him,
he may rejoice when it does come, and be ever after
constrained to a grateful holiness: but in effecting the
change, like Bartimeus, he does, simply, nothing.
All the agonies of the blind man, all his tears and
cries, all his rolling and straining his sightless balls,
had just nothing at all to do with the act of restoration.
That was Christ's alone.
even entered there.
Only His activity availed or
The blind man was the passive
recipient of the miraculous power.
And so in the new birth ;-"born of God,”2 tells it all.
It is the "unparticipated work "3 of the Holy Ghost.
In this, regeneration is distinguished from conver-
sion. God turns the man, but the man, so moved,
turns with his whole heart. It is the day of God's
great "power" but also of the sinner's great "willing-
1 Mark iii. 22-30. 2 John i. 13. 8 Professor Butler.
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147
i
ness."1 "Conversion," says Fisher, in his "Catechism,"
"is the spiritual motion of the whole man toward God
in Christ, as the immediate effect of the real and super-
natural change that is wrought in regeneration." The
fire which the sun has kindled mounts toward it at
once. The kindling of the heavenly flame is regenera-
tion; its upward motion, conversion. Regeneration
is the divine cause; conversion, the sure effect. Where
there is the grace of life, there will be a life of grace.
3. Light did not open Bartimeus's eyes, nor does
truth alone regenerate the sinner. Pouring light on
blind eyes will not heal them. Flashing truth, even
God's glorious truth, on the sinner's mind will not re-
generate him. Bartimeus was as blind at noon as at
midnight. The sinner is as blind under the blaze of
the gospel as amid the glooms of heathenism. The
sinner hates the light. It is not a question of less or
more with him, he hates the very element. He hates
God, and God is light. Truth is but the image of God,
and is hated where He is hated. The carnal mind is
enmity against God, say the Scriptures.2 Then follows
by necessity the declaration, that it is not subject to
the law of God, neither indeed can be. How strong
the statements! How dreadful their connexion!
Absolute enmity against God, and necessary insubor-
dination to His truth! Therefore, before God or His
holy law can be loved, the carnality of the soul must
be destroyed, and that is the work of the Holy Ghost
alone. Whatever part the truth may play, it cannot
create. Only God does that.
1 Psalm cx. 3.
2 Rom. viii. 7.
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II. Let me now speak of the greatness and glory of
this change. I again speak simply of the bodily
change wrought by the miracle in Bartimeus.
The bursting forth again of the sun from the clouds
after many days of storm is as nothing to it, though a
hundred landscapes are flooded with the splendour, and
birds break out in song, and innumerable hearts leap
up to hail the clear heavens. Our thoughts rather go
back to the day when God said, Let there be light,¹
and at once disclosed, to the gaze of the jubilant angels,
a new world glowing with His unshadowed smile.
This is the truer comparison. For here, too, in the
breast of this suffering beggar, was a world of sensa-
tion and consciousness, a world even in its night and
ruin nobler than earth or sun; for what is matter, in
quantities however vast, and forms however excellent,
to an immortal soul? Darkness has, indeed, long
wrapped it, and wisdom been "from one entrance
quite shut out." But now the same mighty word has
spoken, and this living world is suddenly lighted.
through all its wondering, grateful depths. Think ye
the angels had no song for this also?
Then who shall dare speak lightly of that work, in
which God, who commanded the light to shine out of
darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give us the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of
Jesus Christ? Are we not using language most ac-
curately, when we call the new birth the Great Change?
Is it not an event to be looked upon with astonishment?
ever to be spoken of with reverence? It is not a thing
1.Gen. i. 3.
2 2 Cor. iv. 6.
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149
2
for everlasting amazement, that a guilty wretch, dead
under the curse of God, should receive a communication
of the divine life, be made a partaker of the divine
nature,¹ and be adopted into the divine family? that
he should be lifted from the dust of death to sit with
princes on the heavenly hill? that from the pollutions.
of a hellish slavery, he should be exalted to the liberties
and dignities, to the sanctity and blessedness of sonship
with the Most High? Yea, that he should be a joint-
heir with Christ, and sit with Him in His Throne,3
and reign with Him, in indissoluble union with Him,
and participation with Him evermore in the honours
and offices of His everlasting kingdom and priesthood?4
Oh, if there were but one instance of this, would it not
be for the glory of God and the wonder of heaven for
ever? And shall it be less, when we have but to lift
up our eyes, and lo, a great multitude which no man
can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people,
and tongues, standing before the throne, and before
the Lamb?5
Well may the apostle of love cry out with an admi-
ration which even he cannot all express, Behold, what
manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that
we should be called the sons of God! And as his soul
kindles along the line of our coming glory, exclaim
again, confessing too how it passeth understanding,
Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not
yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when
1 2 Pet. i. 4.
8 Rev. iii. 21.
• Rev. vii. 9.
2 Rom. viii. 17.
Rev. i. 6; v. 10.
150
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see
Him as He is !1
Well may the saints, for ever beholding, in the
Lamb that was slain, the ground of their acceptance
and the image of their sonship, sing in song for ever
new, Unto Him that hath loved us, and washed us
from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us
kings and priests unto God and His Father, to Him be
glory and dominion for ever and ever!2
7
9
And shall we not bless, with equal praise, the good
Spirit of our God, of whom we were born again,³ in
whose leading we have proof of our sonship,¹ and by
whose effectual working we shall be changed into the
very image of the glory for which we sigh ?5—oh, shall
we not bless Him, who is at once the Spirit of grace,"
of life, of adoption,8 of help, of prayer,9 of liberty,10 of
comfort,11 of sanctification,12 of access,13 of glory and of
God ?14 Can we praise with a too boundless admira-
tion that work on which the energies of the whole
Godhead are expended, and by which the Perfections
of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are chiefly seen for
ever? Neander does not speak too strongly when he
calls "the communication of the life of God to men,"
"the greatest of all miracles, the essence and aim of
all, the standing miracle of all ages."
III. As "Bartimeus immediately received his sight,”
1 1 John iii. 1, 2.
• Rom. viii. 14.
7 Rom. viii. 2.
10 2 Cor. iii. 17.
13 Eph. ii. 18.
2 Rev. i. 5, 6.
5
2 Cor. iii. 18.
8 Rom. viii. 15.
11 John xiv. 16, 17.
141 Pet. iv. 14.
* John iii. 5.
• Zech. xii. 1O.
• Rom. viii. 26.
12 1 Cor. vi. II.
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151
so, in regeneration, the great change is instantaneous.
There is some one moment when the vision of the
blind man, and the new life of the sinner begins. It
may be feeble, but it has begun, and for the faintest
beginning the creative act is needed. The case of
that other blind man, who, at first, saw men as trees
walking,¹ is not an illustration of gradual regeneration.
Whenever it could be said that he saw, no matter how
dimly, the great change was implied. However con-
fused and weak his vision, it was real. Before, he was
blind; now he sees. His whole state is changed, and
is to be described by directly opposite expressions.
Then he saw nothing, he could not see; now he can
and does see. No further change in the degree of his
power to see can equal this, that from utter blindness
he should see at all.
→
And so in spiritual things; the kingdoms of dark-
ness and light have no neutral frontier where their
dominions mingle.2 They are in deadliest opposition
and sharpest contrast. One cannot be the subject of
Christ and of Satan at the same time, nor in neutrality,
subject to neither. He must be under either wrath
or grace, either dead or alive. None can be both
dead and alive; none can be neither dead nor alive.
But lest any draw a mistaken and discouraging
inference, the case of that other blind man³ is to be
carefully regarded. Men may come slowly to their
evidences of regeneration. Mists and darkness may
still wrap the new creation.
The sinner often frames
for himself an ideal of conversion which leads to
1 Mark viii. 24.
8 Matt. vi. 24. Mark viii. 22-26.
152
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
disappointment. His own imagination, and the glowing
accounts he has sometimes heard, cast a golden flush
over his expected experience. But the Spirit some-
times grants only an experience of such a plain and
commonplace character, that for a long time it never
occurs to the sinner that this is the work for which he
has waited in such high anticipation. In many cases,
especially where grace reigns in early life, the Spirit's
work, in its various stages from conviction to conscious
enjoyment of pardoning love, is quiet, gradual, and al-
most imperceptible. At other times the Sovereign
Spirit may direct the sinner's eyes, at the moment of
his illumination, chiefly to the guilt of his past life, or
downward into the abysses of his own heart, or to the
terrible majesty and exactions of God's holy law, and
so fill him with renewed anguish. Comfort is not
always the immediate result of the new birth.
sound of weeping may be the first that is heard.
Sometimes, too, the gloom disperses very slowly, and
many a blacker cloud sweeps through it, till the soul is
ready to despair. But in none of these cases is the
soul left without sufficient attainable evidence that it
is born of God.
The
Many are the souls who must say with holy Joseph
Fletcher of Stepney, "It has often been the cause of
much distress that I could not particularise the place,
the time, the means of my conversion."
To know these things would indeed be pleasant, but
let none be too anxious about them. Let them give
all diligence to make their calling and election sure,¹
12 Pet. i. 1O.
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153
but be also careful not to waste time and comfort in
these fruitless inquiries, and embarrass the great ques-
tion by that which does not concern it. The main
thing for every sinner is, to be able on good ground to
say, Whereas I was blind, now I see. If he can say
this, and have the witness of the Spirit to its truth,2 it
matters little whether he is able to add, On such a day,
in such a place, by such and such means, my eyes were
opened.
A good ship has been broken by the tempest. Mast
and rudder and compass, all are gone. The storm is
over, but the wreck is drifting away blindly through
night and fog. At length all is still, and the wonder-
ing sailors wait for the day. Tardily and uncertainly
it dawns, and as the heavy mists slowly dissolve, all
eyes are busy trying to discover where they are. At
length one descries a cliff which seems familiar, an-
other a pier in which he can hardly be mistaken, a
third the old church spire, under whose shadow his
mother is sleeping, and now, as the sun breaks forth,
they all cry out in joyful assurance, that they are in the
desired haven! Mysteriously and without their aid,
the Ruler of wind and wave has brought them there,
and all are exulting in the great deliverance.
Nay, shall we say not all? Can you imagine one
poor melancholy man refusing to rejoice, and even
doubting these evidences, because he cannot tell the
hour and angle of his arrival, nor whether he was borne
chiefly by currents of air or ocean?
IV. On the blessedness of this change in Bartimeus
2 Rom. viii. 16.
1 ¹ John ix. 25.
154
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
4
-image of the spiritual blessedness of him who is
first tasting that the Lord is gracious¹-I can hardly
bring myself to comment. The words of the evan-
gelist, "immediately he received his sight," are the
calm record of rapture beyond conception. Well does
Addison call our sight the most perfect and most
delightful of all our senses.2 Well does Solomon ex-
claim, The light of the eyes rejoiceth the heart,³ and
cry out again, like one on whom a morning without
clouds was dawning, Truly the light is sweet, and a
pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun!5
Is it not beautiful that the eyes of a babe are scarcely
opened on this world, before they follow the light and
gaze on it as an absorbing wonder? After its needful
nurture, its first joy is light-soft nurture, too, and
stimulus, is it not?-for its little new-born soul. And
why is it that we gaze unconsciously, but inevitably,
on the ray that steals to us through chink or crevice,
as we sit in reverie in a darkened room? Turn away
as often and as resolutely as we will, if we forget again,
the strong instinct of nature prevails, and our eyes
fasten again upon the light. And who has not felt his
soul blissfully swimming on the glories which pour, in
amber and gold and crimson, from the setting sun?
Though we have seen it a thousand times, we seek it
again, and gaze, with adoring thankfulness, on the
boundless canvas of transparent ether, on which the
hand of God is spreading the colours of heaven. Our
sense of joy is fresher, if not deeper, when even for a
• Prov. xv. 30.
1
Ι I Pet. ii. 3.
4
2 Sam. xxiii. 4.
2
Spectator, No. 411.
Eccl. xi. 7.
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155
night the sight has been shadowed, and the eyes open
on the advancing splendours of morning. And when
after long imprisonment in the chamber of suffering,
we go forth again, leaning, perhaps, on the arm of a
congenial friend, to breathe once more the fresh air,
and rejoice in the measureless freedom of nature, she
seems to have clothed her green fields and forests, her
blue skies and waters, in a brighter pomp of "summer
bravery" than ever before, and the strange beauty fills
and almost oppresses the soul. In what affecting
terms does Dr Kane describe the almost adoring rap-
ture with which the return of the first sunshine was
hailed, after the long horror of an Arctic night-the
frozen blackness of months' duration, when he eagerly
climbed the icy hills "to get the luxury of basking in
its brightness," and made the grateful record, "To-day,
blessed be the Great Author of light! I have once
more looked upon the sun;" while his poor men, sick,
mutilated, broken-hearted, and ready to die, crawled
painfully from their dark berths to look upon his heal-
ing beams; when "everything seemed superlative
lustre and unsurpassable glory," when they could not
refrain; they" oversaw the light."1
But what was this, what were all these, to the wonder
and joy of Bartimeus's first vision of the mighty works
of God? They already had the sense of sight, and had
enjoyed many pleasureable exercises of it. To him the
very sense was new, unimagined before. And now, at
the word of Christ, the glorious element comes stream-
ing, suddenly and for the first time, and in its fulness,
1 “Arctic Expedition,” vol. ii.
156
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
with thrills of inconceivable bliss, upon the sense and
soul buried from birth in utter darkness. Surely, on
that day the light of the moon was as the light of the sun,
and the light of the sun as the light of seven days.¹
And what did he see first? Jesus, his best friend,
his Saviour! Jesus, chiefest of ten thousand and alto-
gether lovely;2 O enviable lot! The first image which
the light of heaven formed in his soul was the image of
that dear face; O rich recompense for the long pains
of blindness! The first employment of his eyes was in
beholding Him that opened them; O blessed consecra-
tion of his new powers and pleasures! He is still on
his knees, fixed by the blessed vision where he had
lately sunk in anguish and darkness. The eyes of
Jesus are looking kindly down into his eyes, dilated and
radiant with ecstasy. Gaze on, old man! Thou canst
not look too ardently or too long. Never can thine
Well mayest
eyes have nobler or purer joy on earth.
thou forget even sun and moon while He is before thee.
In heaven itself all eyes are turned to Him. In
heaven they need no sun nor moon, for He, the
Brightness of the Father's glory, is the light thereof.3
>
But is the joy which attends spiritual illumination
answerable to this? Not always (we have seen) as the
immediate result. But it is attainable, and very soon
the believer ought to have it, and, unless through igno-
rance, error, or guilt, will have it, and that abundantly.
That this is so, the Scriptures everywhere prove, by
their command which make joy in the Lord a duty;4
1 Isa. xxx. 26.
Song v. 10.
Rev. xxi. 23; Heb. i. 3.
2
* Phil. iv. 4.
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
157
by their frequent and most hearty exhortations, espe-
cially in the Psalms,1-that book of religious experi-
ence; by their abounding declarations as to the
blessedness of the righteous;2 and by their exceeding
great and precious promises,³ full of the very cordial
of heaven.4
Moreover, the Bible is the sole Revealer of a con-
ception of joy, in comparison with which every other
idea of it, wherever found, is poor, earthly, and already
darkened with the taint of death. It is a conception
in which every best element of every earthly delight, by
whatever name known-all the serenity of peace, all
the exhilaration of hope, all the satisfaction of fruition,
all the liveliness and sparkle of joy, all the mellower
radiance of gladness, all the flush and bound of exul-
tation, all the thrill and movement of rapture, are
wrought into one surpassing combination, which,
chastened by holiness, softened by charity, dignified
by immortality and tranfused by the beams of the all-
encircling glory of the Godhead, is Blessedness.
It elevates the soul to know of such a state as pos-
sible for itself; it purifies it to hope for it; strengthens
it to strive after it. What, then, must it be to taste it,
as we may on earth, and drink it to the full, as we shall
for ever in heaven!
•
Blessedness begins when the divine life has con-
sciously begun, and progresses just as it is vigorous
and unobstructed. For pleasure must spring from the
1 Ps. xxxiii. 1. 2 Ps. i.; Matt. v. 3-12. 3 2 Pet. i. 4.
Ps. ciii. Many pages of references would not exhaust
the Scriptures embraced under these heads.
158
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
flow of healthy life. If the life is from God, the pleasure
must be godlike. As God is the Living One and the
Blessed One, just as we participate in His life, we must
also share His blessednesș.
The soul is supremely blessed when it rests perfectly
in God. That rest begins when He is seen by faith
reconciled in Jesus Christ. It is consummated when
faith is lost in sight. It begins on earth. It is per-
fected in heaven. But let it not be thought that either
here or there it is a sluggish or even passive rest. It
is inevitably active from the unceasing stir of energies
for ever stimulated, for ever unexhausted. Yet, indeed,
there is a blessed passiveness too. Ever desiring, it is
ever satisfied; and so, looking and loving, enlarging
and filling, blessed and blessing, it goes on for ever.
This is the Bible idea of happiness. It is the peren-
nial flow of the fountain into which the currents of the
Infinite Ocean are pouring; the eternal going forth to
God in love, of the life which He hath implanted in
grace, and which He ever nourishes by perpetual com-
munion in glory.
It has two elements, no more. It receives, it gives.
If it cannot give, or will not, receiving is in vain. The
active is a higher element than the passive. It is more
blessed, says Christ, to give than to receive.¹ Yet is
the passive first in necessity and order. Were there no
receiving, there could be no giving.
Finally, if the new relations of a spiritually enlight-
ened and renewed soul be considered, we cannot doubt
the reality and greatness of its blessedness, both in the
1 Acts xx. 35.
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159
The
life which now is, and that which is to come.1
believer has been freed from the curse of the broken
law, the wrath of God, the bondage of Satan, and the
doom of hell. God has, in free grace, pardoned all his
sins and accepted him as righteous in His sight, for the
righteousness of Christ imputed to him. He has been
received into the number, and has a right to all the
privileges of the sons of God. He is renewed in the
whole man after the image of God, and enabled more
and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.
He may in this life partake in the unspeakable benefits
of assurance of God's love, peace of conscience, joy in
the Holy Ghost, increase of grace and perseverance
therein to the end. He knows that his soul shall at
death be made perfect in holiness, and immediately
pass into glory; while his body, being still united to
Christ, shall rest in its grave till the resurrection; and
that then, being raised up in glory, he shall be openly
acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment,
and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God
to all eternity.
With these words, sublime as they are well known, I
conclude what I had to say of the blessedness of the
new birth.
1 1 Tim. iv. 8.

RE
X.
架
​"And followed Jesus in the way.'
""

HOUGH Jesus stood still at the beggar's call,
He may stay no longer. This work is
finished, and His mightier work on Calvary
urges Him on.
But what shall Bartimeus do? Must they part so
soon? Are his eyes no more to see His Lord? Have
they been opened that he may know his gracious
Friend, and taste the brief bliss of one moment's gaze,
and then bid Him farewell? He would still see indeed,
but the day would lack the warmth and glory it had
before. Ay, his Sun would be set, and all that re-
mained would be but as the stars gleaming coldly on
the darkened earth. It cannot be. As Jesus turns
to depart, he springs from the dust, and follows Him
in the way.
Draw me, cries the Bride in the Song, as soon as
she catches sight of the royal chariot which bears her
approaching Lord, Draw me, and we will run after
Thee.¹ One glimpse of His beauty ravishes her soul
with holy admiration. She would fly to His presence,
and there she would abide. If He stands, like Mary
she would sit at His feet. If He removes, she would
run after Him.
1
Song i 4.
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161
1
This simple phrase, "following Jesus," is compre-
hensive of the whole Christian life, and the many ex-
amples in the New Testament of following Him bodily
are given, that we may understand what it is to follow
Him spiritually. Christ has left us an example, says
Peter, that we should follow His steps.¹ Archbishop
Leighton, commenting on this passage, well reminds
us that the word "example" is "copy" in the original—
such a copy as children write after; whereof, he adds,
"every step of His is a letter." Oh that the Holy
Spirit may teach us to dip our pens in His dying love,
and write after the blessed lines with a skilful hand!
Whoever has looked unto Jesus as the Author of his
faith, will look unto Him as the Finisher.2 If the eyes
be opened truly to see Him, the heart will be opened
truly to love Him; and when the heart is thus enlarged,
like David, we will run in the way of His command-
ments. This is the test of discipleship: If any man
serve Me, let him follow Me.4 It is a mark found in
all the saints: My sheep hear My voice, and I know
them, and they follow Me.5 The Psalmist speaks not
for himself alone, but for all sound believers, when he
cries, My soul followeth hard after Thee. It was the
salvation of Caleb and Joshua in the day of wrath, and
is recorded as their glory for ever, that they wholly
followed the Lord their God. They found it, as all
true pilgrims shall, the only path of safety, and the only
one that, coming out of Egypt, stops not short of
11 Pet. ii. 21.
4
* John xii. 26.
2 Heb. xii. 2.
5 John x. 27.
'Num. xxxii. 11, 12; Josh. xiv. 6–14.
L
8 Ps. cxix. 32.
• Ps. lxiii. 8.
162
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
Canaan. To follow Jesus is the antidote of all error,
doubt, and despondency; it insures our soundness in
doctrine, our growth in grace, and our comforting, per-
petual, and life-giving illumination. All this is in the
words of Christ: I am the Light of the world: He
that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall
have the light of life.¹ And here, too, we find the high,
eternal service and blessedness of the saints. It is the
glory and joy of the one hundred and forty and four
thousand, redeemed from the earth as the first-fruits
unto God and the Lamb, that they follow the Lamb
whithersoever He goeth.2
O friends, let us follow Him whithersoever He goeth.
Let us follow Him "in the way"—the way laid down
in His Word, the way opened by His Providence, the
way of which the Spirit whispers, This is the way,
walk ye in it.3 It may lead thee into great and sore
troubles; but when thou passest through the waters,
He will be with thee, and through the rivers, they
shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through
the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the
flame kindle upon thee. It may be a way of which
we cannot see the end, nay, in which we must walk
softly, groping and wondering. Let us be of good
heart, and still hope in God; for we shall yet praise
Him for the help of His countenance. At evening-
time, it shall be light.
5
Sometimes His way is in the sea, and His path in
the great waters, and His footsteps are not known.
1 John viii. 12.
3 Isa. xxx. 21.
5
• Isa. xxxviii. 15.
2 Rev. xiv. 4.
4 Isa. xliii. 2.
6 Ps. xlii. 5; Zech. xiv. 7.
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
163.
Then the voice of His thunder is in the heavens, the
waters are afraid, the depths also are troubled. But it
is only His enemies who need be in fear and dread.
These tremendous preparations may, indeed, intimi-
date even His own people for a while, and they may
tremble as they find that His awful pathway must be
theirs. But soon even the women of Israel are exult-
ing, with timbrel and dance, on the shore of liberty,
in the glorious triumphing of their God.¹
The path of many of us may lie much in the Valley
of Humiliation—a life of obscurity, poverty, and lowly
toil. We may be Christ's hidden ones² all our days.
Or, we may be brought down to dwell here, after hav-
ing walked in high places. Now, the descent to this
valley, says Bunyan, is "steep," and "the way slip-
pery;" and who hath not found it so? Yet it was
among its green meadows, "beautiful with lilies,” that
Mr Great-heart and the pilgrims heard the cheerful
song of the Shepherd's boy, who wore so much of
'the herb called heart's-ease in his bosom." And
here "
our Lord formerly had His country-house; He
loved much to be here; He loved also to walk in these
meadows, and He found the air was pleasant."
Yes, humble pilgrims! be sure ye shall find your
Lord's foot-prints set thickly here. There you may see
the stable in which He was born,³ the humble home
in which He lived, the shop in which He toiled,5 the
mountain-side where He prayed through all the long
night. See the paths going all over the valley, all
¹ Ps. lxxvii. 16-20; Exod. xv. 20, 21.
8 Luke ii. 7.
• Luke vi. 12.
+ Luke ii. 39, 51.
2 Ps. lxxxiii. 3.
5 Mark vi. 3.
164
BLIND BARTIMEUS.
ľ
worn by His feet, and stopping so often at the abodes
of the suffering and poor.¹ There He sat and wept
over the guilty and lost,2 and there He took the little
babes and blessed them.3 See, too, the place of His
anguish, of His trial, of His bloody death !4 And
there is His tomb, but with the stone rolled away, and
empty now!5 And there is the upper chamber, where
He breathed that peace which still hovers over this
valley like an air of balm.6 And there He lifted up
His hands and ascended to His Father and your Father,
His God and your God."
So thy way, believer, must lie by the cross and the
grave. But beyond the grave is the resurrection, and
then the crown of life for ever. Fear not, then, to follow
the Good Shepherd. Let the twenty-third Psalm
teach thee, in a gracious summary, how and where He
will lead thee, and what He will do for thee by the
way; and I think thou wilt be ready to say with Mr.
Standfast, as he stood in the River of Death, "Where-
ever I have seen the print of His shoe in the earth,
there I have coveted to set my foot too." Look, then,
evermore to Jesus, thy Precursor, and therefore Exem-
plar, in all the way of faith and obedience, and cry
unto Him, even as He cried, in the days of His flesh,9
to His Father, Thou wilt shew me the path of life! In
Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand are
pleasures for evermore ! 10
1 Matt. iv. 23; xi. 5.
4 Matt. xxvi. 36, 57;
• John xx. 19.
Heb. xii. 2, 3.
2 Luke xix. 41.
xxvii. 2, 33.
7 John xx. 17;
9 Heb. v. 7.
3 Mark x. 13-16.
5 Matt. xxviii. 2, 6.
Luke xxiv. 50.
10 Ps. xvi. 11.

SXXX
XI.
'Glorifying God."

HEN his eyes found their noblest joy, his
tongue was put to its noblest use. It is the
glory of the tongue that it can glorify God.¹
Filled with irrepressible gladness, he broke
forth in loud thanksgivings and praises. He began to
sing in the ways of the Lord 2 as soon as he entered
them. He had reached the fourth and brightest link
of that gracious succession revealed in Psalm 1. 15;
trouble leading to prayer, prayer issuing in deliverance,
and deliverance in glorifying. As he looked around
on the goodly frame of nature, and felt the streams of
God's gracious benignity flowing into his conscious-
ness, he was constrained to
"bear some humble part
In that immortal song,"
which is sung in that world in which both creation
and redemption are glorified; Great and marvellous
are Thy works, Lord God Almighty! Just and true
are Thy ways, Thou King of saints! Who shall not
fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? 3
Whoso offereth praise glorifieth Me, says God.4
There were three ways in which Bartimeus glorified
Him, and none can glorify Him in any other way:—in
1 James iii. 9.
8 Rev. xv. 3, 4.
2 Ps. cxxxviii. 5.
4 Ps. 1. 23.
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thought, word, and deed; by his heart's secret gladness
and adoration, by his audible and public praise, and by
his following Jesus in the way. The first was the fruit
of the soul; the second, the fruit of the lips; the third, the
fruit of the life. The first was visible to God alone, the
second and third were manifest to men. The first was
the hidden spring of both the others, for the thanksgiv-
ing of the soul is the soul of thanksgiving, and where it
is wanting, the professions of the mouth and the works
of the life are dead and offensive ;-the loathsome
offering of hypocrisy. But if the lips and life have not
their offerings also, the praise of the soul is without its
needful outlets and evidences, and, like faith without
works, is dead, being alone.¹ If through sloth or cow-
ardice in speaking and acting for God, a bushel is put
over the light,2 it will not only be concealed, but
smothered. The true light, the light of God's kindling,
will, indeed, according to the proverb, burn through
the bushel.³ If there is abundance in the heart, the
mouth will speak. Art thou still dumb? Then thy
heart's fancied abundance is emptiness. Religion not
in the soul, is mockery. Religion in the soul only, is
impossibility. We must first be light, ourselves lighted
from the Sun of Righteousness, and then our light
must shine before men, that they may see our good
works. So only can we lead others to glorify our
Father who is in heaven, and thereby ourselves most
effectually glorify Him.5
1 James ii. 17.
3 Stier, "Words of the Lord Jesus."
• Matt. v. 14-16.
2 Matt. v. 15.
4 Matt. xii. 34.
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167
Dr Doddridge once exerted himself to procure the
pardon of a man condemned to die. When he suc-
ceeded and hastened to the cell with the glad news,
and the prison door was flung open, the poor man cast
himself to the earth, and clasping the feet of his de-
liverer, exclaimed, "Every drop of my blood thanks
you, for you have saved them all!"
Such full-voiced expression of the heart's gratitude
was heard from the men also whom Christ delivered
from their plagues. The dumb began to sing, the lame
to leap, and all to testify, in some open, lively way,
how thankful they were for such mercies. Only once
do we hear that mournful question and complaint,
Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?
There are not found that returned to give glory to God,
save this stranger!1
The piety of the primitive Church was of the same
cheerful, out-spoken type. And when we go back to
the more ancient ages, and climb the hill of Zion, what
bursts of jubilant music greet us! What ringing of
harps, what pealing of organs, with the voice of psalms,
like the swell of the sea! Hearken: Come and hear,
all ye that fear God, and I will declare what He hath
done for my soul.2 I will bless the Lord at all times;
His praise shall continually be in my mouth. O mag-
nify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name to-
gether!3 O sing unto the Lord a new song! Sing
unto the Lord! Bless His name!4
For it is a good
thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises
1 Luke xvii. 17, 18.
8 Ps. xxxiv. 1, 3.
2 Ps. lxvi. 16.
4 Ps. xcvi. 1, 2.
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unto Thy name, O most High! for it is pleasant, and
praise is comely.1 Let the children of Zion be joyful
in their King! 2
Alas, how many who profess to be Zion's children in
our day, seem even ashamed of their King! They
have no glad story to tell of His dealings with their
souls, no harp to sweep in His praise, no apostrophes
to heaven and earth, to field and flood and the saints
of God, challenging them to mingle their voices in
celebrating redeeming grace.
But why do I speak of harps and apostrophes? There
are men and women who profess to have been healed
by the Lord Jesus of their soul's deadly malady, and
yet can hardly bring themselves to speak a word in
His praise in any company. Is He evil spoken of?
They will not defend Him. Is He well spoken of?
They have no word to add. Is He not spoken of at
all? He never will be, if they must begin. The
beauty, excellency, and glory of His person, offices, and
work; all His condescension, grace, and tenderness;
all the events of His life, all the sufferings of His
death; all His exaltation, reign, and second coming,
seem not to be enough to loosen their tongues, or give
them anything at all to say.
Nay, more: they see their blind neighbours grop-
ing their way down to endless night, but cannot
go to them and recommend the heavenly Physician.
If an earthly physician is needed, they are at once
voluble and bold. They can tell you how kind he
is, what cures he has wrought, and where he is to be
1 Ps. xcii. I; cxlvii. 1.
2 Ps. cxlix. 2.
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169
found. But let the soul be in danger, and they are
dumb.
Shall I go further? Yes, there are fathers and
mothers who are ashamed to tell the story of their
healing to their own poor, blind sons and daughters,
who have inherited from them the dreadful woe. They
pity them; they know they will perish if they come not
to Christ; they will be glad if "the minister" will speak
to them; but they cannot. They are ashamed to be
heard by their own families speaking to Jesus. Even
in the sanctuary of home they dare not call their off-
spring about them, and, kneeling before His feet, bless
Him, in simplest words, for His mercy, and then cry,
Lord, look now upon these poor, blind children, and
heal them !"
Can we wonder that God withholds the joy of His
salvation¹ from such base cowardice? Oh, let us
wonder that He withholds His wrath! Blessed Jesus,
if Thou didst die for me, shall I not live for Thee? If
Thou didst suffer for me, shall I not speak for Thee?
If Thou wast not ashamed of my shame, shall I be
ashamed of Thy glory? If my sins once laid on Thee
inade Thee dumb, like a sheep before her shearers,2
shall not Thy graces wrought in me open my lips that
my mouth may shew forth Thy praise, and my tongue
sing aloud of Thy righteousness ?3
1 Ps. li. 12.
2 Isa. liii. 6, 7.
8 Ps. li. 14, 15.

XII.
S
"And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise unto
God."

SINGLE beam of light becomes a star on
the bosom of a thousand drops of the morn-
ing. The song of one is followed by the
chorus of many. The rejoicing of Barti-
meus has made the highway to Jerusalem like the gar-
den of the Lord; joy and gladness are found therein,
thanksgiving and the voice of melody.¹ Just now it
was like the valley of Baca, that is, the Vale of Tears
or Lamentation; but it has become a well—a fountain
of universal joy.2 When God brought David out of
the horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set his feet
upon a rock, and established his goings, then He
put a new song into his mouth, even praise unto our
God. And what then? Did the blessed work stand
alone? Nay, many saw, and feared, and trusted in
the Lord.3
In what mournful contrast was David's experience
in that saddest year of his life-the year of unconfessed
guilt and a stupid conscience! He no more drew
water with joy out of the wells of salvation.
1 Isa. li. 3.
3 Ps. xl. 1-3.
2 Ps. lxxxiv. 6.
• Isa. xii. 3.
Day and
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171
night God's hand was heavy upon him, and his
moisture was turned into the drought of summer.¹
Rust gathered on his harp-strings, and the palace no
more resounded with his morning and evening song.
And what was the result? It was then as now.
The guilty Christian is the dumb Christian, and the
dumb Christian is useless. Guilt paralysed his tongue
and sealed his lips. He could not teach transgressors
the ways of God, and sinners were no more converted
by his instrumentality.2
4
At length the voice of God broke the dismal silence.
By His prophet and His providence,³ He both rebuked
and chastened him, until he came bending and weep-
ing to the altar, and laid on it his broken spirit—that
ever acceptable sacrifice, yea all sacrifices in one.
In the fifty-first Psalm you may read his confession;
and in the thirty-second, the history of the whole
matter—the guilty silence, the sore chastening, the in-
genuous acknowledgment, the free pardon, and the
overflowing thankfulness, confidence, and joy. Nor
does he fail to express his assurance that the usual
result shall follow-that, because of his forgiveness
and blessedness, so obtained, every one that is godly
shall be encouraged to pray.
Ebenezer! Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.6 Let
gracious souls, who have fallen and been lifted up, who
have sinned and found pardon, who have wrestled hard
and overcome, be led to solemn and timely declarations
1 Ps. xxxii. 4.
3
2 Sam. xii. 1–23.
• Ps. li. 17.
2 Ps. li. 13-15.
• Rev. iii. 19.
• I Sam. vii. 12.
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of their Redeemer's grace. It is at once a debt of love
and a deed of mercy.
"Some forlorn and shipwrecked brother
Seeing, shall take heart again."
Blessed Paul says he was before a blasphemer and a
persecutor and injurious; but his Lord's grace was
abundant; and it is a faithful saying, and worthy of all
acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners, of whom Paul felt himself to be the chief.
Howbeit for this cause he obtained mercy, that in him
first Jesus Christ might shew forth all long-suffering,
for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on
Him to everlasting life.¹
This is one great end of a public profession of reli-
gion. We confess Christ that we may commend Him.
The Church is a golden candlestick, which Christ has
set on high to give light to a dark world.2 When a
new light is kindled, how shall it not covet to be set
there too? Christ has commanded it, and can we refuse?
He means it for beauty and for order; for our honour
and defence; for a guide to the lost, an encouragement
to the fearful, a testimony and rebuke to the carnal;
for the comfort of the faithful; and for His own glory.
Yet let us not exalt our grateful telling above His
gracious working. If the multitude had not seen what
Jesus did, little would they have minded what Barti-
meus said. Their song began quicker and rose higher
for his joyful key-note; still, it was of the miracle they
sung. They waited only for proof that he actually saw,
and when his rapturous outburst gave that, their hearts
I Tim. i. 13-16.
2 Rev. i. 20.
1
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173
flowed over. And so our professions are nothing,
except as true displays of Christ's work. Their virtue
is in their verity-their transparency, suffering the
grace and power of God to shine through them. They
bring glory to God as they are clear instances, and so
proofs, of His almighty, healing love.
How profoundly interesting and suggestive is this
whole scene! Jesus has just wrought a work in which
He has destroyed one of the works of the devil, re-
deemed a wretched man from his captivity and torment,
and thereby brought glory to the Father; and now we
behold Him serenely walking at the head of a vast
multitude, who fill the air with acclamations at the
gracious deed.
It is an epitome of His work on earth, and a fore-
shewing of His reward in heaven.
3
He came down from heaven, not to do His own will,
but the will of Him that sent Him.1 This was His
meat, that without which He could not live.2 He
sought not His own glory. His Incarnation was for
three great ends-the destruction of the devil and his
works; the salvation of the lost;5 and the manifesta-
tion of the Father. But the last was the great end,
to which both of the others were subordinate. His
whole life, His whole death breathed out this prayer,
Father, glorify Thy name! He himself announces
this as the sum of all He had done on earth. It was
1 John vi. 38.
8
³ John viii. 50.
• Matt. xviii. II.
2 John iv. 34.
'Heb. ii. 14; 1 John iii. 8.
6 John i. 18; xii, 27, 28.
$
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on the night of His betrayal, but a few days after this
triumphal march from Jericho, but a few hours before
His death. Then the thirty-three years of His life on
earth passed in solemn review before Him. They were
indeed covered with obloquy and ignominy, but they
presented nothing for regret. No repentance mingled
with the contemplation, but rather calm, deep, sublime
satisfaction. Surrounded by chosen witnesses of His
work and representatives of His Church, He lifted up
His eyes to heaven, and exclaimed, I have glorified
Thee on the earth, I have finished the work which Thou
gavest Me to do.1 It was for this He laboured, for
this He suffered; for this He saved, for this He de-
stroyed. Zeal for His Father's glory absorbed Him,2
consumed Him,³ and yet sustained Him. And it was
only when this end was accomplished, as far as was
possible in His estate of humiliation, that He thought
of His own glory, and prayed to be restored to it-His
essential, eternal, incommunicable glory, that which
He veiled so deeply when He undertook His lowly
errand. And now, O Father, He prays, glorify Thou
Me with Thine own self, with the glory which I had
with Thee before the world was!5 Oh, what a life was
His! a whole consecration, all worship, all praise, one
'golden censer full of divinest incense, ever burning and
sending forth its fragrant clouds to heaven!
Finally, from this highway to Jerusalem and the
hallelujahs of its festal multitudes, our thoughts are
borne forward and upward.
1
John xvii. 4.
2 John iv. 34.
8
' John ii. 17.
* John xii. 27, 28.
5 John xvii. 5.
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175
"There all the heavenly hosts are seen,
In shining ranks they move!"
Bartimeus is there. Yea, every one of all that count-
less throng was once a poor Bartimeus,-blind, wretched,
ruined, the helpless captive of Satan, marred and
accursed, until Jesus passed by to pity and to heal.
And so each one is in turn the subject of the song and
joy of all the rest.
1
The multitude is there. Now there is no chiding
nor strife among them. They are without spot, or
wrinkle, or any such thing. They "shine in the light
of God," and have been made perfect in love. They
are all clothed in bright raiment of holiness and right-
eousness, and can look full upon the sunshine of the
Throne. They wear crowns upon their heads,³ and
have harps and palms in their hands. This is the
sacramental host of God's elect, the general assembly
and church of the first-born.5 An innumerable com-
pany of angels is also with them, rejoicing in their joy,
helping them to praise
And Jesus is there. What would all this be without
Him? Nay, without Him, none of this could be. The
music would hush and the light go out. The crown
would fall from the head, and the gold become dim.7
Silence, coldness, and death would cover the heavenly
plains. But there He is, walking at the head of all the
glorious company. He has loved them with an ever-
1 Eph. v. 27.
3 I Pet. v. 4.
5 Heb. xii. 23.
7 Lam. iv. 7.
2
I John iv. 18.
* Rev. vii. 9; xiv. 2.
• Heb. xii. 22.
Uor M
}
·
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lasting love,¹ and redeemed them at an infinite cost,²
and now He sees of the travail of His soul and is
satisfied.³ It is finished! He presents them before
His Father; "Behold I and the children which God
hath given Me!"4
"O long-expected Day begin!"
Jer. xxxi. 3.
• Isa. liii. II.
Maou
The End
2
I 1 Pet. i. 18, 19.
• Heb. ii. 13.

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