Chapter II: Part 2

How unprofitable is the diligence which busies itself in finding out reasons why faith in our case should not be saving! We have God's word for it, that _whosoever_ believeth in Jesus shall not perish, and we search for arguments why _we_ should perish if we did believe. If any one gave me an estate, I certainly should not commence raising questions as to the title. What can be the use of inventing reasons why I should not hold my own house, or possess any other piece of property which is enjoyed by me? If the Lord is satisfied to save me through the merits of his dear Son, assuredly I may be satisfied to be so saved. If I take God at his word, the responsibility of fulfilling his promise does not lie with me, but with God, who made the promise.

But you fear that you may not be one of those for whom the promise is intended. Do not be alarmed by that idle suspicion. No soul ever came to Jesus wrongly. No one can come at all unless the Father draw him; and Jesus has said, "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." No soul ever lays hold on Christ in a way of robbery; he that hath him hath him of right divine; for the Lord's giving of himself _for_ us, and _to_ us, is so free, that every soul that takes him has a grace-given right to do so. If you lay hold on Jesus by the hem of his garment, without leave, and behind him, yet virtue will flow from him to you as surely as if he had called you out by name, and bidden you trust him. Dismiss all fear when you trust the Saviour. Take him and welcome. He that believeth in Jesus is one of God's elect.

Did you suggest that it would be a horrible thing if you were to trust in Jesus and yet perish? It would be so. But as you must perish if you do not trust, the risk at the worst is not very great.

"I can but perish if I go;
I am resolved to try;
For if I stay away, I know
I must for ever die."

Suppose you stand in the Slough of Despond for ever; what will be the good of that? Surely it would be better to die struggling along the King's highway towards the Celestial City, than sinking deeper and deeper in the mire and filth of dark distrustful thoughts! You have nothing to lose, for you have lost everything already; therefore make a dash for it, and dare to believe in the mercy of God to you, even to you.

But one moans, "What if I come to Christ, and he refuses me?" My answer is, "Try him." Cast yourself on the Lord Jesus, and see if he refuses you. You will be the first against whom he has shut the door of hope. Friend, don't cross that bridge till you come to it! When Jesus casts you out, it will be time enough to despair; but that time will never come. "This man receiveth sinners": he has not so much as begun to cast them out.

Have you never heard of the man who lost his way one night, and came to the edge of a precipice, as he thought, and in his own apprehension fell over the cliff? He clutched at an old tree, and there hung, clinging to his frail support with all his might. He felt persuaded that, should he quit his hold, he would be dashed in pieces on some awful rocks that waited for him down below. There he hung, with the sweat upon his brow, and anguish in every limb. He passed into a desperate state of fever and faintness, and at last his hands could hold up his body no longer. He relaxed his grasp! He dropped from his support! He fell--about a foot or so, and was received upon a soft mossy bank, whereon he lay, altogether unhurt, and perfectly safe till morning. Thus, in the darkness of their ignorance, many think that sure destruction awaits them, if they confess their sin, quit all hope in self, and resign themselves into the hands of God. They are afraid to quit the hope to which they ignorantly cling. It is an idle fear. Give up your hold upon everything but Christ, and drop. Drop from all trust in your works, or prayers, or feelings. Drop at once! Drop now! Soft and safe shall be the bank that receives you. Jesus Christ, in his love, in the efficacy of his precious blood, in his perfect righteousness, will give you immediate rest and peace. Cease from self-confidence. Fall into the arms of Jesus. This is the major part of faith--giving up every other hold, and simply falling upon Christ. There is no reason for fear: only ignorance causes your dread of that which will be your eternal safety. The death of carnal hope is the life of faith, and the life of faith is life everlasting. Let self die, that Christ may live in you.

But the mischief is that, to the one act of faith in Jesus, we cannot bring men. They will adopt any expedient sooner than have done with self. They fight shy of believing, and fear faith as if it were a monster. O foolish tremblers, who has bewitched you? You fear that which would be the death of all your fear, and the beginning of your joy. Why will you perish through perversely preferring other ways to God's own appointed plan of salvation?

Alas! there are many, many souls that say, "We are bidden to trust in Jesus, but instead of that we will attend the means of grace regularly." Attend public worship by all means, but not as a substitute for faith, or it will become a vain confidence. The command is, "Believe and live;" attend to that, whatever else you do. "Well, I shall take to reading good books; perhaps I shall get good that way." Read the good books by all means, but that is not the gospel: the gospel is, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Suppose a physician has a patient under his care, and he says to him, "You are to take a bath in the morning; it will be of very great service to your disease." But the man takes a cup of tea in the morning instead of the bath, and he says, "That will do as well, I have no doubt." What does his physician say when he enquires--"Did you follow my rule?" "No, I did not." "Then you do not expect, of course, that there will be any good result from my visits, since you take no notice of my directions." So we, practically, say to Jesus Christ, when we are under searching of soul, "Lord, thou badest me trust thee, but I would sooner do something else! Lord, I want to have horrible convictions; I want to be shaken over hell's mouth; I want to be alarmed and distressed!" Yes, you want anything but what Christ prescribes for you, which is that you should _simply trust him_. Whether you feel or do not feel, cast yourself on him, that _he_ may save you, and he alone. "But you do not mean to say that you speak against praying, and reading good books, and so on?" Not one single word do I speak against any of those things, any more than, if I were the physician I quoted, I should speak against the man's drinking a cup of tea. Let him drink his tea; but not if he drinks it instead of taking the bath which is prescribed for him. So let the man pray: the more the better. Let the man search the Scriptures; but, remember, that if these things are put in the place of simple faith in Christ, the soul will be ruined. Beware lest it be said of any of you by our Lord, "Ye search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life; but ye will not come unto me that ye might have life."

Come by faith to Jesus, for without him you perish for ever. Did you ever notice how a fir-tree will get a hold among rocks which seem to afford it no soil? It sends a rootlet into any little crack which opens; it clutches even the bare rock as with a huge bird's claw; it holds fast, and binds itself to earth with a hundred anchorages. Our little drawing is very accurate. We have often seen trees thus firmly rooted upon detached masses of bare rock. Now, dear heart, let this be a picture of yourself. Grip the Rock of Ages. With the rootlet of little-faith hold to him. Let that tiny feeler grow; and, meanwhile, send out another to take a new grasp of the same Rock. Lay hold on Jesus, and keep hold on Jesus. Grow up into him. Twist the roots of your nature, the fibres of your heart, about him. He is as free to you as the rocks are to the fir-tree: be you as firmly lashed to him as the pine is to the mountain's side.

DIFFICULTY IN THE WAY OF BELIEVING.

It may be that the reader feels a difficulty in believing. Let him consider. We cannot believe by an immediate act. The state of mind which we describe as believing is a result, following upon certain former states of mind. We come to faith by degrees. There may be such a thing as faith at first sight; but usually we reach faith by stages: we become interested, we consider, we hear evidence, we are convinced, and so led to believe. If, then, I wish to believe, but for some reason or other find that I cannot attain to faith, what shall I do? Shall I stand like a cow staring at a new gate; or shall I, like an intelligent being, use the proper means? If I wish to believe anything, what shall I do? We will answer according to the rules of common-sense.

If I were told that the Sultan of Zanzibar was a good man, and it happened to be a matter of interest to me, I do not suppose I should feel any difficulty in believing it. But if for some reason I had a doubt about it, and yet wished to believe the news, how should I act? Should I not hunt up all the information within my reach about his Majesty, and try, by study of the newspapers and other documents, to arrive at the truth? Better still, if he happened to be in this country, and would see me, and I could also converse with members of his court, and citizens of his country, I should be greatly helped to arrive at a decision by using these sources of information. Evidence weighed and knowledge obtained lead up to faith. It is true that faith in Jesus is the gift of God; but yet he usually bestows it in accordance with the laws of mind, and hence we are told that "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." If you want to believe in Jesus, hear about him, read about him, think about him, know about him, and so you will find faith springing up in your heart, like the wheat which comes up through the moisture and the heat operating upon the seed which has been sown. If I wished to have faith in a certain physician, I should ask for testimonials of his cures, I should wish to see the diplomas which certified to his professional knowledge, and I should also like to hear what he has to say upon certain complicated cases. In fact, I should take means to know, in order that I might believe.

Be much in _hearing_ concerning Jesus. Souls by hundreds come to faith in Jesus under a ministry which sets him forth clearly and constantly. Few remain unbelieving under a preacher whose great subject is Christ crucified. Hear no minister of any other sort. There are such. I have heard of one who found in his pulpit Bible a paper bearing this text, "_Sir, we would see Jesus_." Go to the place of worship to see Jesus; and if you cannot even hear the mention of his name, take yourself off to another place where he is more thought of, and is therefore more likely to be present.

Be much in _reading_ about the Lord Jesus. The books of Scripture are the lilies among which he feedeth. The Bible is the window through which we may look and see our Lord. Read over the story of his sufferings and death with devout attention, and before long the Lord will cause faith secretly to enter your soul. The Cross of Christ not only rewards faith, but begets faith. Many a believer can say--

"When I view thee, wounded, grieving,
Breathless, on the cursed tree,
Soon I feel my heart believing
Thou hast suffered thus for me."

If hearing and reading suffice not, then deliberately _set your mind to work to overhaul the matter_, and have it out. Either believe, or know the reason why you do not believe. See the matter through to the utmost of your ability, and pray God to help you to make a thorough investigation, and to come to an honest decision one way or the other. Consider who Jesus was, and whether the constitution of his person does not entitle him to confidence. Consider what he did, and whether this also must not be good ground for trust. Consider him as dying, rising from the dead, ascending, and ever living to intercede for transgressors; and see whether this does not entitle him to be relied on by you. Then cry to him, and see if he does not hear you. When Usher wished to know whether Rutherford was indeed as holy a man as he was said to be, he went to his house as a beggar, and gained a lodging, and heard the man of God pouring out his heart before the Lord in the night. If you would know Jesus, get as near to him as you can by studying his character, and appealing to his love.

At one time I might have needed evidence to make me believe in the Lord Jesus; but now I know him so well, by proving him, that I should need a very great deal of evidence to make me doubt him. It is now more natural to me to trust than to disbelieve: this is the new nature triumphing; it was not so at the first. The novelty of faith is, in the beginning, a source of weakness; but act after act of trusting turns faith into a habit. Experience brings to faith strong confirmation.

I am not perplexed with doubt, because the truth which I believe has wrought a miracle on me. By its means I have received and still retain a new life, to which I was once a stranger: and this is confirmation of the strongest sort. I am like the good man and his wife who had kept a lighthouse for years. A visitor, who came to see the lighthouse, looking out from the window over the waste of waters, asked the good woman, "Are you not afraid at night, when the storm is out, and the big waves dash right over the lantern? Do you not fear that the lighthouse, and all that is in it, will be carried away? I am sure I should be afraid to trust myself in a slender tower in the midst of the great billows." The woman remarked that the idea never occurred to her now. She had lived there so long that she felt as safe on the lone rock as ever she did when she lived on the mainland. As for her husband, when asked if he did not feel anxious when the wind blew a hurricane, he answered, "Yes, I feel anxious to keep the lamps well trimmed, and the light burning, lest any vessel should be wrecked." As to anxiety about the safety of the lighthouse, or his own personal security in it, he had outlived all that. Even so it is with the full-grown believer. He can humbly say, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." From henceforth let no man trouble me with doubts and questionings; I bear in my soul the proofs of the Spirit's truth and power, and I will have none of your artful reasonings. The gospel to me is truth: I am content to perish if it be not true. I risk my soul's eternal fate upon the truth of the gospel, and I know that there is no risk in it. My one concern is to keep the lights burning, that I may thereby benefit others. Only let the Lord give me oil enough to feed my lamp, so that I may cast a ray across the dark and treacherous sea of life, and I am well content.

Now, troubled seeker, if it be so, that your minister, and many others in whom you confide, have found perfect peace and rest in the gospel, why should not you? Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Do not his words do good to them that walk uprightly? Will not you also try their saving virtue?

Most true is the gospel, for God is its Author. Believe it. Most able is the Saviour, for he is the Son of God. Trust him. Most powerful is his precious blood. Look to it for pardon. Most loving is his gracious heart. Run to it at once.

Thus would I urge the reader to seek faith; but if he be unwilling, what more can I do? I have brought the horse to the water, but I cannot make him drink. This, however, be it remembered--_unbelief is wilful when evidence is put in a man's way, and he refuses carefully to examine it_. He that does not desire to know, and accept the truth, has himself to thank if he dies with a lie in his right hand. It is true that "he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved": it is equally true that "he that believeth not shall be damned."

A HELPFUL SURVEY.

To help the seeker to a true faith in Jesus, I would remind him of the work of the Lord Jesus in the room and place and stead of sinners. "When we were yet without strength, in due time CHRIST DIED FOR THE UNGODLY" (Rom. v. 6). "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree" (1 Pet. ii. 24). "The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Is. liii. 6). "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God" (1 Pet. iii. 18).

Upon one declaration of Scripture let the reader fix his eye. "WITH HIS STRIPES WE ARE HEALED" (Is. liii. 5). God here treats sin as a disease, and he sets before us the costly remedy which he has provided.

I ask you very solemnly to accompany me in your meditations, for a few minutes, while I bring before you the stripes of the Lord Jesus. The Lord resolved to restore us, and therefore he sent his only-begotten Son, "very God of very God," that he might descend into this world to take upon himself our nature, in order to our redemption. He lived as a man among men; and, in due time, after thirty years or more of obedience, the time came when he should do us the greatest service of all, namely, stand in our stead, and bear "the chastisement of our peace." He went to Gethsemane, and there, at the first taste of our bitter cup, he sweat great drops of blood. He went to Pilate's hall, and Herod's judgment-seat, and there drank draughts of pain and scorn in our room and place. Last of all, they took him to the cross, and nailed him there to die--to die in our stead. The word "stripes" is used to set forth his sufferings, both of body and of soul. The whole of Christ was made a sacrifice for us: his whole manhood suffered. As to his body, it shared with his mind in a grief that never can be described. In the beginning of his passion, when he emphatically suffered instead of us, he was in an agony, and from his bodily frame a bloody sweat distilled so copiously as to fall to the ground. It is very rarely that a man sweats blood. There have been one or two instances of it, and they have been followed by almost immediate death; but our Saviour lived--lived after an agony which, to anyone else, would have proved fatal. Ere he could cleanse his face from this dreadful crimson, they hurried him to the high priest's hall. In the dead of night they bound him, and led him away. Anon they took him to Pilate and to Herod. These scourged him, and their soldiers spat in his face, and buffeted him, and put on his head a crown of thorns. Scourging is one of the most awful tortures that can be inflicted by malice. It was formerly the disgrace of the British army that the "cat" was used upon the soldier: a brutal infliction of torture. But to the Roman, cruelty was so natural that he made his common punishments worse than brutal. The Roman scourge is said to have been made of the sinews of oxen, twisted into knots, and into these knots were inserted slivers of bone, and huckle-bones of sheep; so that every time the scourge fell upon the bare back, "the plowers made deep furrows." Our Saviour was called upon to endure the fierce pain of the Roman scourge, and this not as the _finis_ of his punishment, but as a preface to crucifixion. To this his persecutors added buffeting, and plucking of the hair: they spared him no form of pain. In all his faintness, through bleeding and fasting, they made him carry his cross until another was forced, by the forethought of their cruelty, to bear it, lest their victim should die on the road. They stripped him, and threw him down, and nailed him to the wood. They pierced his hands and his feet. They lifted up the tree, with him upon it, and then dashed it down into its place in the ground, so that all his limbs were dislocated, according to the lament of the twenty-second psalm, "I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint." He hung in the burning sun till the fever dissolved his strength, and he said, "My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death." There he hung, a spectacle to God and men. The weight of his body was first sustained by his feet, till the nails tore through the tender nerves: and then the painful load began to drag upon his hands, and rend those sensitive parts of his frame. How small a wound in the hand has brought on lockjaw! How awful must have been the torment caused by that dragging iron tearing through the delicate parts of the hands and feet! Now were all manner of bodily pains centred in his tortured frame. All the while his enemies stood around, pointing at him in scorn, thrusting out their tongues in mockery, jesting at his prayers, and gloating over his sufferings. He cried, "I thirst," and then they gave him vinegar mingled with gall. After a while he said, "It is finished." He had endured the utmost of appointed grief, and had made full vindication to divine justice: then, and not till then, he gave up the ghost. Holy men of old have enlarged most lovingly upon the bodily sufferings of our Lord, and I have no hesitation in doing the same, trusting that trembling sinners may see salvation in these painful "stripes" of the Redeemer.

To describe the outward sufferings of our Lord is not easy: I acknowledge that I have failed. But his soul-sufferings, which were the soul of his sufferings, who can even conceive, much less express, what they were? At the very first I told you that he sweat great drops of blood. That was his heart driving out its life-floods to the surface through the terrible depression of spirit which was upon him. He said, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." The betrayal by Judas, and the desertion of the twelve, grieved our Lord; but the weight of our sin was the real pressure on his heart. Our guilt was the olive-press which forced from him the moisture of his life. No language can ever tell his agony in prospect of his passion; how little then can we conceive the passion itself? When nailed to the cross, he endured what no martyr ever suffered; for martyrs, when they have died, have been so sustained of God that they have rejoiced amid their pain; but our Redeemer was forsaken of his Father, until he cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" That was the bitterest cry of all, the utmost depth of his unfathomable grief. Yet was it needful that he should be deserted, because God must turn his back on sin, and consequently upon him who was made sin for us. The soul of the great Substitute suffered a horror of misery instead of that horror of hell into which sinners would have been plunged had he not taken their sin upon himself, and been made a curse for them. It is written, "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree;" but who knows what that curse means?

The remedy for your sins and mine is found in the substitutionary sufferings of the Lord Jesus, and in these only. These "stripes" of the Lord Jesus Christ were on our behalf. Do you enquire, "Is there anything for us to do, to remove the guilt of sin?" I answer: There is nothing whatever for you to do. By the stripes of Jesus we are healed. All those stripes he has endured, and left not one of them for us to bear.

"But must we not believe on him?" Ay, certainly. If I say of a certain ointment that it heals, I do not deny that you need a bandage with which to apply it to the wound. Faith is the linen which binds the plaster of Christ's reconciliation to the sore of our sin. The linen does not heal; that is the work of the ointment. So faith does not heal; that is the work of the atonement of Christ.

"But we must repent," cries another. Assuredly we must, and shall, for repentance is the first sign of healing; but the stripes of Jesus heal us, and not our repentance. These stripes, when applied to the heart, work repentance in us: we hate sin because it made Jesus suffer.

When you intelligently trust in Jesus as having suffered for you, then you discover the fact that God will never punish you for the same offence for which Jesus died. His justice will not permit him to see the debt paid, first, by the Surety, and then again by the debtor. Justice cannot twice demand a recompense: if my bleeding Surety has borne my guilt, then I cannot bear it. Accepting Christ Jesus as suffering for me, I have accepted a complete discharge from judicial liability. I have been condemned in Christ, and there is, therefore, now no condemnation to me any more. This is the ground-work of the security of the sinner who believes in Jesus: he lives because Jesus died in his room, and place, and stead; and he is acceptable before God because Jesus is accepted. The person for whom Jesus is an accepted Substitute must go free; none can touch him; he is clear. O my hearer, wilt thou have Jesus Christ to be thy Substitute? If so, thou art free. "He that believeth on him is not condemned." Thus "with his stripes we are healed."

A REAL HINDRANCE.

Although it is by no means a difficult thing in itself to believe him who cannot lie, and to trust in One whom we know to be able to save, yet something may intervene which may render even this a hard thing to my reader. That hindrance may be a secret, and yet it may be none the less real. A door may be closed, not by a great stone which all can see, but by an invisible bolt which shoots into a holdfast quite out of sight. A man may have good eyes, and yet may not be able to see an object, because another substance comes in the way. You could not even see the sun if a handkerchief, or a mere piece of rag, were tied over your face. Oh, the bandages which men persist in binding over their own eyes!

A sweet sin, harboured in the heart, will prevent a soul from laying hold upon Christ by faith. The Lord Jesus has come to save us from sinning; and if we are resolved to go on sinning, Christ and our souls will never agree. If a man takes poison, and a doctor is called in to save his life, he may have a sure antidote ready; but if the patient persists in keeping the poison-bottle at his lips, and will continue to swallow the deadly drops, how can the doctor save him? Salvation consists largely in parting the sinner from his sin, and the very nature of salvation would have to be changed before we could speak of a man's being saved when he is loving sin, and wilfully living in it. A man cannot be made white, and yet continue black; he cannot be healed, and yet remain sick; neither can anyone be saved, and be still a lover of evil.

A drunkard will be saved by believing in Christ--that is to say, he will be saved from being a drunkard; but if he determines still to make himself intoxicated, he is not saved from it, and he has not truly believed in Jesus. A liar can by faith be saved from falsehood, but then he leaves off lying, and is careful to speak the truth. Anyone can see with half an eye that he cannot be saved from being a liar, and yet go on in his old style of deceit and untruthfulness. A person who is at enmity with another will be saved from that feeling of enmity by believing in the Lord Jesus; but if he vows that he will still cherish the feeling of hate, it is clear that he is not saved from it, and equally clear that he has not believed in the Lord Jesus unto salvation. The great matter is to be delivered from the love of sin: this is the sure effect of trust in the Saviour; but if this effect is so far from being desired that it is even refused, all talk of trusting in the Saviour for salvation is an idle tale. A man goes to the shipping-office, and asks if he can be taken to America. He is assured that a ship is just ready, and that he has only to go on board, and he will soon reach New York. "But," says he, "I want to stop at home in England, and mind my shop all the time I am crossing the Atlantic." The agent thinks he is talking to a madman, and tells him to go about his business, and not waste his time by playing the fool. To pretend to trust Christ to save you from sin while you are still determined to continue in it, is making a mock of Christ. I pray my reader not to be guilty of such profanity. Let him not dream that the holy Jesus will be the patron of iniquity.

Do you see the tree in my picture? The ivy has grown all over it, and is strangling it, sucking out its life, and killing it. Can that tree be saved? The gardener thinks it can be. He is willing to do his best. But before he begins to use his axe and his knife, he is told that he must not cut away the ivy. "Ah! then," he says, "it is impossible. It is the ivy which is killing the tree, and if you want the tree saved, you cannot save the ivy. If you trust me to preserve the tree, you must let me get the deadly climber away from it." Is not that common sense? Certainly it is. You do not trust the tree to the gardener unless you trust him to cut away that which is deadly to it. If the sinner will keep his sin, he must die in it; if he is willing to be rescued from his sin, the Lord Jesus is able to do it, and will do it if he commits his case to his care.

What, then, is your darling sin? Is it any gross wrong-doing? Then very shame should make you cease from it. Is it love of the world, or fear of men, or longing for evil gains? Surely, none of these things should reconcile you to living in enmity with God, and beneath his frown. Is it a human love, which is eating like a canker into the heart? Can any creature rival the Lord Jesus? Is it not idolatry to allow any earthly thing to compare for one instant with the Lord God? "Well," saith one, "for me to give up the particular sin by which I am held captive, would be to my serious injury in business, would ruin my prospects, and lessen my usefulness in many ways." If it be so, you have your case met by the words of the Lord Jesus, who bids you to pluck out your eye, and cut off your hand or foot, and cast it from you, rather than be cast into hell. It is better to enter into life with one eye, with the poorest prospects, than to keep all your hopes, and be out of Christ. Better be a lame believer than a leaping sinner. Better be in the rear rank for life in the army of Christ than lead the van and be a chief officer under the command of Satan. If you win Christ, it will little matter what you lose. No doubt many have had to suffer that which has maimed and lamed them for this life; but if they have entered thereby into eternal life, they have been great gainers.

It comes to this, my friend, as it did with John Bunyan; a voice now speaks to you, and says--

WILT THOU KEEP THY SIN AND GO TO HELL?

OR

LEAVE THY SIN AND GO TO HEAVEN?

The point should be decided before you quit the spot. In the name of God, I ask you, Which shall it be--Christ and salvation, or the favourite sin and damnation? There is no middle course. Waiting or refusing to decide will practically be a sure decision for the evil one. He that stands questioning whether he will be honest or not, is already out of the straight line: he that does not know whether he wishes to be cleansed from sin gives evidence of a foul heart.

If you are anxious to give up every evil way, our Lord Jesus will enable you to do so at once. His grace has already changed the direction of your desires: in fact, your heart is renewed. Therefore, rest on him to strengthen you to battle with temptations as they arise, and to fulfil the Lord's commands from day to day. The Lord Jesus is great at making the lame man to leap like a hart, and in enabling those who are sick of the palsy to take up their bed and walk. He will make you able to conquer the evil habit. He will even cast the devil out of you. Yes, if you had seven devils, he could drive them out at once; there is no limit to his power to cleanse and sanctify. Now that you are willing to be made whole, the great difficulty is removed. He that has set the will right can arrange all your other powers, and make them move to his praise. You would not have earnestly desired to quit all sin if he had not secretly inclined you in that direction. If you now trust him, it will be clear that he has begun a good work in you, and we feel assured that he will carry it on.

ON RAISING QUESTIONS.

In these days, a simple, childlike faith is very rare; but the usual thing is to believe nothing, and question everything. Doubts are as plentiful as blackberries, and all hands and lips are stained with them. To me it seems very strange that men should hunt up difficulties as to their own salvation. If I were doomed to die, and I had a hint of mercy, I am sure I should not set my wits to work to find out reasons why I should not be pardoned. I could leave my enemies to do that: I should be on the look-out in a very different direction. If I were drowning, I should sooner catch at a straw than push a life-belt away from me. To reason against one's own life is a sort of constructive suicide of which only a drunken man would be guilty. To argue against your only hope is like a foolish man sitting on a bough, and chopping it away so as to let himself down. Who but an idiot would do that? Yet many appear to be special pleaders for their own ruin. They hunt the Bible through for threatening texts; and when they have done with that, they turn to reason, and philosophy, and scepticism, in order to shut the door in their own faces. Surely this is poor employment for a sensible man.

Many nowadays who cannot quite get away from religious thought, are able to stave off the inconvenient pressure of conscience by quibbling over the great truths of revelation. Great mysteries are in the Book of God of necessity; for how can the infinite God so speak that all his thoughts can be grasped by finite man? But it is the height of folly to get discussing these deep things, and to leave plain, soul-saving truths in abeyance. It reminds one of the two philosophers who debated about food, and went away empty from the table, while the common countryman in the corner asked no question, but used his knife and fork with great diligence, and went on his way rejoicing. Thousands are now happy in the Lord through receiving the gospel like little children; while others, who can always see difficulties, or invent them, are as far off as ever from any comfortable hope of salvation. I know many very decent people who seem to have resolved never to come to Christ till they can understand how the doctrine of election is consistent with the free invitations of the gospel. I might just as well determine never to eat a morsel of bread till it has been explained to me how it is that God keeps me alive, and yet I must eat to live. The fact is, that we most of us _know_ quite enough already, and the real want with us is not light in the head, but truth in the heart; not help over difficulties, but grace to make us hate sin and seek reconciliation.

Here let me add a warning against tampering with the Word of God. No habit can be more ruinous to the soul. It is cool, contemptuous impertinence to sit down and correct your Maker, and it tends to make the heart harder than the nether millstone. We remember one who used a penknife on his Bible, and it was not long before he had given up all his former beliefs. The spirit of reverence is healthy, but the impertinence of criticizing the inspired Word is destructive of all proper feeling towards God.

If ever a man does feel his need of a Saviour after treating Scripture with a proud, critical spirit, he is very apt to find his conscience standing in the way, and hindering him from comfort by reminding him of ill-treatment of the sacred Word. It comes hard to him to draw consolation out of passages of the Bible which he has treated cavalierly, or even set aside altogether, as unworthy of consideration. In his distress the sacred texts seem to laugh at his calamity. When the time of need comes, the wells which he stopped with stones yield no water for his thirst. Beware, when you despise a Scripture, lest you cast away the only friend that can help you in the hour of agony.

A certain German duke was accustomed to call upon his servant to read a chapter of the Bible to him every morning. When anything did not square with his judgment he would sternly cry, "Hans, strike that out." At length Hans was a long time before he began to read. He fumbled over the Book, till his master called out, "Hans, why do you not read?" Then Hans answered, "Sir, there is hardly anything left. It is all struck out!" One day his master's objections had run one way, and another day they had taken another turn, and another set of passages had been blotted, till nothing was left to instruct or comfort him. Let us not, by carping criticism, destroy our own mercies. We may yet need those promises which appear needless; and those portions of Holy Writ which have been most assailed by sceptics may yet prove essential to our very life: wherefore let us guard the priceless treasure of the Bible, and determine never to resign a single line of it.

What have we to do with recondite questions while our souls are in peril? The way to escape from sin is plain enough. The wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err therein. God has not mocked us with a salvation which we cannot understand. BELIEVE AND LIVE is a command which a babe may comprehend and obey.

Doubt no more, but now believe;
Question not, but just receive.
Artful doubts and reasonings be
Nailed with Jesus to the tree.

Instead of cavilling at Scripture, the man who is led of the Spirit of God will close in with the Lord Jesus at once. Seeing that thousands of decent, common-sense people--people, too, of the best character--are trusting their all with Jesus, he will do the same, and have done with further delays. Then has he begun a life worth living, and he may have done with further fear. He may at once advance to that higher and better way of living, which grows out of love to Jesus, the Saviour. Why should not the reader do so at once? Oh that he would!

A Newark, New Jersey, butcher received a letter from his old home in Germany, notifying that he had, by the death of a relative, fallen heir to a considerable amount of money. He was cutting up a pig at the time. After reading the letter, he hastily tore off his dirty apron, and did not stop to see the pork cut up into sausages, but left the shop to make preparations for going home to Germany. Do you blame him, or would you have had him stop in Newark with his block and his cleaver?

See here the operation of faith. The butcher believed what was told him, and acted on it at once. Sensible fellow, too!

God has sent his messages to man, telling him the good news of salvation. When a man believes the good news to be true, he accepts the blessing announced to him, and hastens to lay hold upon it. If he truly believes, he will at once take Christ, with all he has to bestow, turn from his present evil ways, and set out for the Heavenly City, where the full blessing is to be enjoyed. He cannot be holy too soon, or too early quit the ways of sin. If a man could really see what sin is, he would flee from it as from a deadly serpent, and rejoice to be freed from it by Christ Jesus.

WITHOUT FAITH NO SALVATION.

Some think it hard that there should be nothing for them but ruin if they will not believe in Jesus Christ; but if you will think for a minute you will see that it is just and reasonable. I suppose there is no way for a man to keep his strength up except by eating. If you were to say, "I will not eat again, I despise such animalism," you might go to Madeira, or travel in all lands (supposing you lived long enough!), but you would most certainly find that no climate and no exercise would avail to keep you alive if you refused food. Would you then complain, "It is a hard thing that I should die because I do not believe in eating"? It is not an unjust thing that if you are so foolish as not to eat, you must die. It is precisely so with believing. "Believe, and thou art saved." If thou wilt not believe, it is no hard thing that thou shouldst be lost. It would be strange indeed if it were not to be the case.

A man who is thirsty stands before a fountain. "No," he says, "I will never touch a drop of moisture as long as I live. Cannot I get my thirst quenched in my own way?" We tell him, no; he must drink or die. He says, "I will never drink; but it is a hard thing that I must therefore die. It is a bigoted, cruel thing to tell me so." He is wrong. His thirst is the inevitable result of neglecting a law of nature. You, too, must believe or die; why refuse to obey the command? Drink, man, drink! Take Christ and live. There is the way of salvation, and to enter you must trust Christ; but there is nothing hard in the fact that you must perish if you will not trust the Saviour. Here is a man out at sea; he has a chart, and that chart, if well studied, will, with the help of the compass, guide him to his journey's end. The pole-star gleams out amidst the cloud-rifts, and that, too, will help him. "No," says he, "I will have nothing to do with your stars; I do not believe in the North Pole. I shall not attend to that little thing inside the box; one needle is as good as another needle. I have no faith in your chart, and I will have nothing to do with it. The art of navigation is only a lot of nonsense, got up by people on purpose to make money, and I will not be gulled by it." The man never reaches port, and he says it is a very hard thing--a very hard thing. I do not think so. Some of you say, "I am not going to read the Scriptures; I am not going to listen to your talk about Jesus Christ: I do not believe in such things." Then Jesus says, "He that believeth not shall be damned." "That's very hard," say you. But it is not so. It is not more hard than the fact that if you reject the compass and the pole-star you will not reach your port. There is no help for it; it must be so.

You say you will have nothing to do with Jesus and his blood, and you pooh-pooh all religion. You will find it hard to laugh these matters down when you come to die, when the clammy sweat must be wiped from your brow, and your heart beats against your ribs as if it wanted to leap out and fly away from God. O soul! you will find then, that those Sundays, and those services, and this old Book, are something more and better than you thought they were, and you will wonder that you were so simple as to neglect any true help to salvation. Above all, what woe it will be to have neglected Christ, that Pole-star which alone can guide the mariner to the haven of rest!

Where do you live?

You live, perhaps, on the other side of the river, and you have to cross a bridge before you can get home. You have been so silly as to nurse the notion that you do not believe in bridges, nor in boats, nor in the existence of such a thing as water. You say, "I am not going over any of your bridges, and I shall not get into any of your boats. I do not believe that there is a river, or that there is any such stuff as water." You are going home, and soon you come to the old bridge; but you will not cross it. Yonder is a boat; but you are determined that you will not get into it. There is the river, and you resolve that you will not cross it in the usual way; and yet you think it is very hard that you cannot get home. Surely something has destroyed your reasoning powers, for you would not think it so hard if you were in your senses. If a man will not do the thing that is necessary to a certain end, how can he expect to gain that end? You have taken poison, and the physician brings an antidote, and says, "Take it quickly, or you will die; but if you take it quickly, I will guarantee that the poison will be neutralized." But you say, "No, doctor, I do not believe in antidotes. Let everything take its course; let every tub stand on its own bottom; I will have nothing to do with your remedy. Besides, I do not believe that there is any remedy for the poison I have taken; and, what is more, I don't care whether there is or not."

Well, sir, you will die; and when the coroner's inquest is held on your body, the verdict will be, 'Served him right!' So will it be with you if, having heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, you say, "I am too much of an advanced man to have anything to do with that old-fashioned notion of substitution. I shall not attend to the preacher's talk about sacrifice and blood-shedding." Then, when you perish, the verdict given by your conscience, which will sit upon the King's quest at last, will run thus, "_Suicide: he destroyed his own soul_." So says the old Book--"O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself!" Reader, I implore thee, do not so.

TO THOSE WHO HAVE BELIEVED.

Friends, if now you have begun to trust the Lord, trust him out and out. Let your faith be the most real and practical thing in your whole life. Don't trust the Lord in mere sentiment about a few great spiritual things; but trust him for everything, for ever, both for time and eternity, for body and for soul. See how the Lord hangeth the world upon nothing but his own word! It has neither prop nor pillar. Yon great arch of heaven stands without a buttress or a wooden centre. The Lord can and will bear all the strain that faith can ever put upon him. The greatest troubles are easy to his power, and the darkest mysteries are clear to his wisdom. Trust God up to the hilt. Lean, and lean hard; yes, lean all your weight, and every other weight upon the Mighty God of Jacob.