Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

Once more, faith is blessed above seeing, because it grasps a set of truths, and enjoys a class of pleasures which are different from those of the senses, and which the senses cannot touch. GOD the Father invisible for ever, GOD the Holy Ghost, blowing like the wind where it listeth, so that you cannot see whence it cometh and whither it goes, ministering angels, spiritual influences, and consolations, and helps—what can ear, or eye, or hand know of these? But faith knows them, hears them, sees them, handles them, and joys in them. And this, brethren, exhibits the nature of faith’s blessedness; that to it is revealed the whole spiritual world; that the evidence which it needs, the object of its worship, its Saviour, its LORD, its hopes and fears, and encouragements and promises are never absent, and never missed, (but by its own dimness or voluntary blindness) whatever may become of the outward signs and boding presences. Picture to yourselves, brethren, the scene of that chamber where the raised CHRIST stood manifest, in the posture of blessing, before His adoring disciples. Imagine what Thomas had before felt, and what he now felt. Then hear CHRIST say—“The bliss of this moment might have been yours before, if you had sought to attain it by faith, and not by sight; and what you now see may be yours for ever, for in spirit I shall ever be with you, and by faith you may ever behold Me! Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed”; and that blessing, brethren, was for us, if we will have it. If we believe, then we are thus blessed. If we are not blessed, we may be. O let us lay hold on this truth, let us cultivate faith, let us pray to GOD for an increase of it, and let us perpetually exercise it in beholding Him Who is ever with us, to pardon our faithless sins, to restore us to His company, to breathe upon us peace and blessing.

SERMON VI. FAULTLESSNESS BEFORE GOD. (INNOCENTS’ DAY.)

REVELATION, XIV., 5.

_They are without fault before the throne of_ GOD.

JOB declares that GOD puts no trust in His saints; that He charges His angels with folly; that in His sight the very heavens are not clean. This language is, of course, figurative, and not to be taken literally; but it well describes to us the transcendent holiness of GOD, and His utter abhorrence of all evil. In comparison of Him, heaven itself is not pure, and angels, endued with wisdom, swift and constant to obey, delighting in His will, even these are not perfect—fall far short of perfection before Him. Job would show us the distance between GOD and man. St. John, however, in the chapter of my text, would exhibit another truth, not contradictory, but rather supplementary to Job’s, namely, the nearness, through grace, of man to GOD. The Apostle is describing, for the comfort and encouragement of the tried and persecuted, a vision which he had seen of some of those who have passed away from this world, and, as a kind of first-fruits, are already with GOD and the Lamb; and he says, that “in their mouth is found no guile; for they are without fault before the throne of GOD.”

“Without fault,” means here, without spot or blemish; not only free from actual transgression, but wholly untainted by corruption of sin—not wanting in anything that belongs to the perfect character of the approved of GOD.

That man in his natural state is altogether faulty, that even in his redeemed, and spiritualised, and sanctified state, while here on earth, he has still many faults, are truths so plainly taught, so proved to our reason and experience, that it would be idle to enforce them. How, then, can he ever stand faultless before the throne of GOD? Now some would answer, that for CHRIST’S sake GOD overlooks, that CHRIST, by His merits, hides man’s faults; and so that the redeemed in heaven are not really faultless, but that for CHRIST’S sake faultlessness is reckoned, imputed to them. This is what may be called the popular answer to our question. But, brethren, how utterly wrong it is seen to be, when we consider that, in order to exalt GOD’S mercy and His wisdom in contriving justification, it sacrifices His truth and His holiness. GOD cannot call the faulty faultless. He Who is Truth cannot enter with His Holy Son (Who is also Truth) into a plan of deceit, by which, to Himself, to them, to angels, to the whole universe, sin shall be presented as holiness. GOD may agree not to reckon with men for their sins, to forget the past, on certain conditions to deal with the faulty as if they were actually faultless; but He cannot—I say it advisedly, it is beyond the limits of His power, as regulated by His truth—He cannot call evil good. And, brethren, besides, even if it were possible that by some strange agreement with the Son, sinful man should be passed off as holy, still his sin, while it remained, hide it, disguise it, call it by what name you will, must separate from GOD. Charity might forbear to punish it, or to make mention of it. Charity might even gild it over; but Holiness deals not with the name, but with the reality; and holiness must shrink from sin and thrust it away. This ought to be the most readily perceived and admitted of all Scripture truths, that GOD cannot tolerate near iniquity; that—if I may venture reverently to use such words—even if GOD were willing to receive to Himself an unchanged sinner, the actual reception would be morally impossible; the same heaven could not contain holiness and sin! No, brethren, if the sinner is to enter heaven, it must be, not because his name is changed, but his nature; he must be actually without fault before GOD. We see this to have been the case with those described in the text: for it is expressly said, “In their mouth was found no guile.” Observe, it is not, GOD mercifully overlooked their guile for the sake of His dear Son, the Guileless One; He charitably called them guileless; but “in their mouth was found (the testimony of truth to the searching of holiness) no guile: yea, for they are altogether blameless, without spot or blemish.” It is an actual, not an imputed faultlessness that is thus described. Now, how is it to be attained by sinful men? And here comes in a second answer of popular theology. At or after death, CHRIST meets the departed, and by His resurrection-power quickens that which was dead, purifies that which was corrupt, spiritualises, sanctifies, and, as by a miracle, converts the sinner into a perfect saint. This is an answer only second in popularity to the one we have been considering. Those who urge it, believe that man is naturally depraved, that, under grace, he retains much, almost all, his old nature, that he is very faulty in deed, in will and affections. They know that he must be faultless to gain accession to heaven and dwell with GOD and the Lamb, and this faultlessness they hope for and pray for; but there is no effort to acquire it; there is no concern for the absence, the continued absence of it; it is regarded as altogether a thing of the future; the free and perfect gift—perfect at once—to the released soul and the raised body. Men who hold this view, are often better than their creed requires them to be. In love of GOD and devotion to Him, they strive to abandon sin and cultivate holiness; but they have no definite object in view of becoming faultless here, in order to be faultless in heaven. They seem to believe that they cannot get any nearer to faultlessness whatever they do, and that those who have made no efforts, ay, have even led ungodly lives, and, but for a few last sighs and ejaculations, would have died ungodly deaths, are just as qualified, just as fit in many cases, just as sure recipients of instantly converting and perfecting grace in the next world!

But if this is so, why have we such solemn warnings, to the effect that as the tree falls, so shall it lie? “He that is righteous, then, shall be righteous still. He that is filthy then, shall be filthy still.” Why is it that in the representations which we have of the Judgment, men are always dealt with according to what they were in life, “Inasmuch as ye did it,” “Inasmuch as ye did it not”? Why is the pound taken away from him that did not seek to increase it, and given to him who had gained ten pounds, and the commentary subjoined, “Unto every one which hath shall be given, and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him”? Why is the boaster of his privileges—“In Thy name have I cast out devils”—instantly dismissed with the words, “Depart from me, I never knew you”? Why are they reproved who called CHRIST LORD, LORD, but did not the things which He said? What did St. Peter mean when he exhorted “Save yourselves;” and Paul, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;” “Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall;” and CHRIST Himself, “Behold, I come quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every man according as his work shall be;” “Blessed are they that do His commandments that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city”? Surely all this, as with a voice from heaven, calls on us to put away the delusion, that mortal life is not a probation, that man has not a fitness to acquire in this life, in order that he may be faultless in heaven. The answer of truth, brethren, to the question, “How can man be faultless in heaven?” is, briefly, By praying, and striving, through the blessing of GOD, the grace of the Spirit of CHRIST, and his own self-denial, and diligence, and cultivated holiness, to become less and less faulty here. After all, he will never, on this side of the grave, be without spot or blemish, and perfect in holiness. Whatever CHRIST may do for him here, he will still have much to be purged away, much to be quickened, much to be glorified. But, be sure, there must be a seed-time here and a growing here, if there is to be a harvest hereafter. There must be a service, if there is to be a reward; we must be faithful in a little, before we are made rulers over much; there must be a fitness, a partial, a main fitness acquired here, or no admission there to the inheritance of the Saints in light. CHRIST’S work in us hereafter is not a transforming, but a completing, a finishing, a perfecting work. “To him that hath”—that is, that has made use of and improved what he hath—“to him more shall be given,” and he shall abound. He who has traced in his soul and life the outline of the features of the blessed JESUS, shall have the likeness filled up and finished by the Divine artist, and be wholly conformed to His image. He who has kept down the flesh, shall have the power of the flesh destroyed in him. He who has sought after holiness, shall be made perfect. A great change; much taken away, much added, but not a transformation. A great work, which can only be done then, and only by CHRIST; but which will fail to be done then if materials are not provided for it now; if the foundation has not been laid, and the walls have not been raised, and all made ready for the roof of GOD’S adding, and the capping of the tower of glory. Yes; this is the qualification, without which you cannot be received, but, having it, cannot be refused. Labour and pray to be faultless here, and CHRIST shall at the end perfect your faultlessness, and shall present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. But the text seems to speak not of those who had washed away defilements, had secured pardon of offences, had repaired faults and made up deficiencies, in short, had been sinners, but, under the operation of the spirit of CHRIST, were become saints; but of those who never had been faulty, spotted, or blemished “These are they which were not defiled with women, for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.” Of course, there must have been the spot and blemish of original sin; but, apart from this—which CHRIST’S applied purifying power and all-sufficient merits would entirely remove—there seems to have been in the lives of these persons no actual sin, no omission of righteousness. Now, as there is no man that liveth and sinneth not, it has been conjectured that the vision here exhibits those who were taken away to GOD in their infancy, before they had the power or the will to do good or evil, and who, therefore, as far as actual deeds and feelings are concerned, not by work, or grace, or conviction, but absolutely and from the first were faultless: and probably the selection of the description as the Gospel for this day, the festival of the Holy Innocents, has gone far to confirm this conjecture. But, brethren, this surely is not the meaning, at least the full meaning, of the words. They describe freedom from defilement and following of the Lamb as things that might have been otherwise. They hold up for the example and encouragement of those who were tempted to lust, and to depart from following the living LORD, the praise and happiness of those who are without fault in these respects; and therefore they suggest to us, I think, as the most profitable and foremost thought, the blessedness, the superior blessedness of those who never have contracted sin, nor failed in holiness.

Men sometimes seem to fancy that the most glorious character in heaven, the object of GOD’S fondest love, will be the once deep-stained and wholly defiled, that have been washed in CHRIST’S blood till they are become whiter than snow, the reckless, and rebellious, and blaspheming, who have been subdued and converted; and that in comparison of these, the mainly regular righteous life will almost pass unnoticed. It is easy to account for the supposition. We read, without due consideration, of her that sinned much, and was forgiven much, and therefore loved much; of the returned prodigal rejoiced over more than the son who had remained at home; of the joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance; of publicans and harlots going into the kingdom of heaven before priests and scribes. We forget that these things were said to men who were not really righteous, but self-sufficient; that they were an accommodation to their own kind of reasoning; that they were the justification of special works and feelings, and peculiar demonstrations. Surely we are not to understand by them anything more than that sinners were _at times_ more in CHRIST’S thoughts than saints; that on the recovery of one lost sheep, the joy over that one caused the rest for the moment to be put out of remembrance. Surely we are not to understand that GOD has less love for, and shows less favour to those who have uniformly served and honoured Him, than to those whose life has been one of contempt and rebellion, who have refused to accept Him till they had made trial of all else; that GOD’S power and glory are more magnified in the ultimate conversion of such a sinner, than in the steady control and improvement of a life-long saint; that in themselves the reformed drunkards and defiled are better than those who were always sober and pure; that their memories are more blissful, and their themes of praise more satisfactory; that they are even equal in favour, in bliss, in manifested honour to those who were undefiled and consistently obedient, whom Holy Scripture distinguishes on this very account, of whom it relates, that they sing a song which no other can learn, signifying that they have a peculiar privilege and a peculiar joy! Brethren, be sure it is not so. GOD is abundantly gracious to all who call upon Him, late as well as early. No one, whatever his past life, shall be refused who comes to Him through CHRIST. In his late righteousness all his former sins shall be forgiven and forgotten; they shall not once be mentioned unto him. He shall have too, the joy of the righteous, and shall dwell with GOD in heaven; but still He Who makes one star to differ from another in glory, Who bestows different measures of reward upon different capacities, and different attainments, has a special interest and a superior blessedness for those who have never been stained, who have always stayed in their father’s house, and have obeyed His will and loved His voice. In themselves they are dearer to Him, as more like JESUS; and for them, He has seats closer to the throne of CHRIST, and offices of honour near His person.

If this is so, if “faultlessness,” in the sense of never blotted, never imperfect, is the state that is most blessed, then, brethren, we might perhaps be tempted to envy the fate of those whom we commemorate to-day, who suffered so early for CHRIST’S sake, and as soon almost as they were born, were put to death. We might judge, too, that the little ones whom GOD so frequently takes away so soon after lending them, are summoned to a higher blessedness than we can ever know; and therefore that not only would it have been gain to die in infancy, but that it is positive loss to live to years of discretion and responsibility. Let us not err herein. We believe that the dear innocents, whose first consciousness is of bliss in heaven, whose reason begins to develop, and their will to exercise itself, only when sin is impossible, are not only unspeakably blessed, but that GOD specially loves them, and folds them to His bosom (as we did here), because of that innocence: no guile, no defilement—all simplicity and trust. Thankful then in their sober moments are all bereaved parents who are assured of their departed little ones’ eternal safety, and are spared the fears and anxieties, the heartrending realisation of self-will developed, and the world’s evil example followed, and the devil triumphant. The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; and, in that He has taken away, from the evil to come, Oh! blessed be the name of the LORD.

But, brethren, it is only because we fear for the future, that we thankfully accept such a present. Could we be sure that our little ones would remain faultless, that they would not abuse the world, nor fall into great error or misery, that they would grow in grace, and in the fear of the LORD, and at length surely attain to glory; then, not from selfishness, but for their sakes, we should covet length of days for them. And rightly, for there is a better faultlessness, and a correspondingly higher blessedness than that of infants, who were allowed no opportunity (and possessed no power) to contract fault: it is the faultlessness of those who shrink from the allowed opportunity, who restrain the possessed power, and overcome the persuading will, who pass through the fire without the smell of it being left on their garments, who make manifest by a life of self-denials, and resistances to temptations, and patience and perseverance in well-doing, their intelligent deliberate love of GOD, and hatred of evil. These are the tried, the eagerly accepted, the specially loved. These do the LORD’S work, and set forth the LORD’S glory. These shall indeed be welcomed with a “Well-done good and faithful servant,” for them shall be reserved the best seats on the right hand of GOD; and they shall joy in GOD, and GOD in them, with a peculiar joy, for they are likest unto CHRIST, Whose spotlessness was preserved among so many defilements, Who with heart, and mind, and life, consistently, unceasingly served GOD, and Who therefore is highly exalted, and has a name which is above all other names.

Oh it is no mean privilege, brethren, which you forego, when you leave the ranks of the faultless, when you shrink from duty, or yield to sinful pleasure, or contract any stain of ungodliness. Say not, “It is only for once.” It will surely be for more than once; but if it were not, still from being faultless that _once_ makes you blotted and blemished. Say not, “I can repent by and by, and GOD of His mercy will accept me, and I shall be myself again.” You may not live to repent. Sin may disincline, the Spirit provoked may leave you; but even if you do repent—though GOD will undoubtedly forgive, and in a sense restore you—remember, you can never be as you were before. You may be cleansed, but not as at first clean; admitted to heaven, but not to the band of the one hundred and forty-four thousand of undefiled; joined to the glorious choir of the redeemed, but not allowed, not able to sing the peculiar song of the faultless.

“But what,” some would say, “is the use of this preaching? We are all already faulty; we can none of us have a place among these choice first fruits of GOD’S harvest.” Brethren, faultlessness, pure faultlessness, is no longer ours; but comparative faultlessness (and Bible faultlessness, after all, is only comparative freedom from wilful sin) may, and, I trust, does pertain to many of us; and for each degree of nearness to faultlessness, if I understand the Bible aright, there is its peculiar reward. I would put you on your guard against losing that reward, by sinking to a lower level. I would urge you to hold fast what you have, to subdue yourselves, to resist the world and the devil, to be ever on the watch against danger, and to flee speedily from temptation, if it is too strong to fight against, to seek strength and sanctification in means of grace, to pray constantly (and strive constantly to make good your prayer), that CHRIST would keep you from falling, and finally present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.

SERMON VII. PAST MERCIES REVIEWED. (NEW YEAR’S EVE.)

GENESIS, XXXII., 10.

_I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies_, _and of all the
truth_, _which thou hast showed unto Thy servant_; _for with my staff
I passed over this Jordan_; _and now I am become two bands_.

THESE are Jacob’s words. They form part of the prayer which he offered to GOD, when, on his return from Haran, he found that Esau was coming out against him with four hundred men.

Mingled feelings must have possessed Jacob at this time; strange remembrances must have been his! Twenty years ago he had passed over that Jordan—near which he now stood—in flight from an enraged brother, meditating and preparing vengeance for an act of fraudulent injury. What a weary pilgrimage he had since followed; what sorrows, what desolations had possessed his aching heart; how he had toiled and suffered wrong; even now was fleeing from it! Yet, those twenty years gone, he was coming back, not to the prospect of peace and happiness, not to the hope that his brother had forgotten his vengeance, or that he would easily be reconciled to him; but to face a mindful, aggravated avenger, strengthened by four hundred followers. Surely he had fled and been in exile to no purpose! Surely, by deferring it, he had increased his trouble! It must have been that Jacob now acutely remembered the cause of Esau’s anger; that he meditated on the mean advantage that he had taken, the base fraud to which he had been a party, the lying, the profanity of his lips, the evil deeds which led to evil consequences. Ah! now he felt that man cannot sin with impunity, that transgression and punishment are bound together as cause and effect, that vengeance, though it tarry, though it slumber, though we run from it, and hide from it many, many days, will yet accomplish its purpose, will surely repay! Yes; and did he not feel that vengeance had even followed him; that he had been its victim all those twenty years; that the frauds of Laban, from first to last, and the strifes and dissensions of his own household were the fruits of his deceit; that GOD had allowed them, that in a way He had caused them in retaliation, in punishment of his sin! What an experience to him, what a proof to us, my brethren, that sin will surely find us out!

But Jacob must have had other and different thoughts—thoughts which preponderated. As he called to mind his first passage over Jordan, did not he remember the wonderful vision that was vouchsafed him of angels descending to earth, ascending to heaven, in token of Divine providence, of the intercourse between man and GOD? Did he not remember the Voice which promised to be with him, to keep him in all places whither he went, to bring him again to this land, to give it to him and to his seed after him? Did he not look along those twenty years, and remember that GOD had been with him, and that, by His command, he was now coming back; and did he not hope, yes, even against hope, that GOD would be with him in the coming struggle, that He would crown His mercy and goodness with a present success, and with the establishment of himself and his seed in the promised land? And one other remembrance surely he had. He remembered the vow which in the fresh reverence of GOD’S presence, in glad and grateful acceptance of His promises, he had solemnly made, “The LORD shall be my GOD;” and he must have remembered how often he had forgotten that vow, how generally he had slightly regarded it. These I suppose to have been the feelings and remembrances which filled the breast of Jacob, when he uttered the prayer in which our text occurs. Observe how that prayer exhibits the right ordering of these feelings, making prominent, putting uppermost thoughts and acknowledgments of GOD’S goodness; and, in the moment of greatest peril, pausing to review mercies, and to give thanks! There is no bitter lamentation of his hard lot throughout those years of promised blessing; there is no pleading with GOD, that if he had sinned he had surely been punished enough; there is no mention of the merits of his contrite heart and amended life; there is no angry feeling against Esau, no supplication that GOD would smite and confound him. It is a godly, a model prayer. Betaking himself to GOD in the hour of danger, as his only confidence and help, he humbly urges no personal claim, but—that he is in the place of GOD’S commanding. “‘Thou LORD that saidst unto me Return unto thy country and unto thy kindred,’ I did not recklessly run into danger, I did not voluntarily gratify the natural yearning of my poor heart. Thou broughtest me here, O LORD protect me here;” and then having put forth himself, though but such a little way, and coming to consider GOD, Who had shown him such wondrous goodness, Who had fulfilled for him so truthfully all His promises, he exclaims, “I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth which thou hast showed unto Thy servant: for with my staff—as a solitary, poor individual—I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands. Deliver me, I pray thee.”

This seems to me, brethren, a fit theme for a sermon on New Year’s Eve. Jacob, come back from Haran to Jordan, where he had made a covenant with GOD, may well typify our return to-night to the sanctuary of GOD, whence we went forth refreshed and pledged last New Year’s Eve. Jacob’s reflections—he is the pattern of a mediator—may well provoke us to ask of the days that are past, to remember all the way which the LORD our GOD has led us. Jacob’s prayer shows us how to speak to GOD, what we should feel in His presence on such an occasion as this, how to propitiate Him, and to secure His defence and blessing in what lies before us.

I will not attempt, brethren, to picture the circumstances through which you have passed in the year which is now all but ended; many of them I could only guess at, many of them, to me, would be unimaginable. Recall them for yourselves and meditate on them. They will teach you much, and influence you much. I will address you simply as those who have made a halt in the journey of life, and who want now GOD’S blessing in the known and unknown dangers, anxieties, sufferings, and labours that lie before you in the coming year.

Well: let your requests be made known unto GOD with prayer; above all—yes! I mean it—_above all_, with thanksgiving.

But, first, before you approach GOD, to speak to Him, to ask of Him, to thank Him, be sure that you can say to Him, “I am in the way of Thy commandments.” If at this moment you are contentedly different from what you know He would have you to be; if you indulge, or do not resolutely renounce any besetting sin; if you deliberately neglect any positive duty; if in will and affections, and aims, you are worldly and selfish, and do not seek to be otherwise; if you are planning anything, or hoping for anything which GOD does not approve; if you are shrinking from, desiring to avoid, what He appoints; if you have not made up your minds to try to be holy, to walk in the way of righteousness; then, brethren, you are disqualified to pray to GOD. He hears not such. He has made no promises to them: they are not His. Go fashion yourselves (He will mercifully give you grace to do it) into the character that He loves; get you into the paths that He has marked out; turn your face towards the Holy Land, and then come to tell Him of your felt unworthiness, to speak His praise, to intreat Him to be with you, to defend and prosper you; and be sure you shall be welcomed and blessed.

But, supposing you not disqualified to come, supposing you bent on coming, consider now your right posture and deportment before GOD. Ask nothing of right, ask all out of felt unworthiness, and that, not simply the unworthiness of the stranger, and alien, who want mercies which they have never known, and speak to a GOD that has not hitherto been their GOD, as the publican cried, “GOD be merciful to me a sinner;” but such an unworthiness as belonged to the prodigal, such as he felt and groaned under, when, reflecting on all the love and blessedness which he had experienced in his father’s house, and had despised, and sinned against, and seeing the Father coming towards him, ready to pardon, ready to embrace, ready to lead him home again, he was humbled to the very dust before Him, on account of his goodness, and declared himself unworthy to be called His son. Oh, my brethren, if you do not feel unworthy, when you approach the all-good and all-holy GOD, and if the feeling is not one enlightened by, and full of the remembrances of blessings already received, you are unfit to ask for further blessings. Not to have used GOD’S blessings is great indignity; not to be thankful for them is base ingratitude; but not to feel, that whether used or not used, appreciated or not appreciated, they are many and undeserved—this is to deny that you ever received them, or, claiming them as a right, to defy GOD to withhold them! Cultivate then, I pray you, this feeling of unworthiness; and, that you may do so the more readily, review the mercies, the promises made true which you have received; and tell out their number, their kind, and their magnitude to the GOD Who gave them, and would have them acknowledged. “With my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands.” Now the argument of these words is, “I do not come to Thee, professing that I am a fit person to be helped, but I claim Thee as a GOD who are wont to help such as I am. I am not worthy of the least of Thy mercies: but yet Thou hast shown me marvellous mercies. I possess now the evidences and pledges of Thy goodness. Therefore I pray for, I humbly count on further blessing, not because I am a holy man, but because Thou art a good GOD, and My good GOD.” It is an argument which prevails with GOD. He is pleased to see that we recognise His former gifts, that we make _them_—and not ourselves, our love of Him, our obedience, our prayers, and fastings, and study of His Word, and use of His grace—the ground of application. He likes that His consistent faithfulness should be invoked; that since He has made a beginning, just on that very account, He should be looked to (so as it be humbly), to continue His work, and to accomplish it. When you go to GOD to ask for fresh blessings, you cannot take with you better and more effectual words than those which make mention of, which exhibit as promises and pledges, what you have already received.

But these words are not simply an argument for further help; they are, besides, a free acknowledgment, a pure praise of what has been given. They may be the plea of a beseeching heart, but they are besides the tribute of a grateful heart; and it is in this sense, brethren, that I specially wish you to adopt them to-night, and to make them a thanksgiving to GOD for past mercies reviewed. “With my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands.” Jacob might have found mercies enough to enlist his gratitude in any one year, or circumstance of his exile and pilgrimage, and doubtless he reviewed each and all particularly; but in his speech he comprehended all in a general mention of them, and summed them up, and demonstrated them by pointing to their effect. “Now I am become two bands.” Review your past mercies, consider how GOD has been with you at all times, and has ever been doing you good. Call to mind what progress you have been able to make spiritual or temporal; what success has attended you; what friends have been given you; what dangers you have narrowly escaped; what sicknesses recovered from; what wounds been healed, what troubles overcome, what tears staunched. Have they not caused you, like Jacob, to increase from the solitariness and poverty of that passing over Jordan, to the riches and prosperity of the two bands? Perhaps you say, you cannot trace such progress; you are much the same outwardly and inwardly, as you have been from the time that you can first remember. Then, brethren, you can furnish your own testimony, that GOD has dealt better with you than He did with Jacob, that your first state, your continued state has been all like his last. O discern and bless GOD for those least heeded but greatest mercies, the mercies which come to us at the beginning, and follow us all the days of our life—the continued prosperity of our family, the continued harmony and love, the bread always sure, the right understanding early implanted, the fear of the LORD from our youth. There is a way of travelling in our days which is so smooth, that often we cannot tell that we are moving; and there is a manner of blessing, so uninterrupted, so uniform, so without roughnesses and stoppages and ups and downs, that if we be not on the lookout, we may fancy that we are not blessed at all. Let not this be your case. Do not refuse to be grateful, because all goes well with you, because there is nothing that needs to be supplied, because nothing is taken away from you. Rather, let the measure of your blessedness be also the measure of your praise and the strength of your resolution. “Surely goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.”

But your object, perhaps, “Mine has not been this life of uninterrupted prosperity, but, on the contrary, one of continued adversity. It is Jacob’s first, not his last estate, that has been always mine.” What do you mean? That you were not born rich, nor influential, nor of honoured family? That you have not the wisdom of the philosopher, the dignity of the prince, the opulence of the successful merchant, the leisure of independent private life? That may be. Your state may be the reverse of all this, and yet be the state of the “two bands.” External prosperity in Jacob’s time was commonly, yet not always, the sign of spiritual blessings; in Gospel days, with our better light, and greater power of appreciation of the reality, the sign is not so often afforded, frequently the most favoured are without it; yea, and often it abides with the unblessed as the mocking substitute for true blessedness. If you are without GOD in the world; if you do not feel Him about your bed, and about your path; if you do not live in His fear, and hope for His mercies, and His rewards; if the thought of Him does not moderate your worldly joy, and direct your aims, and leaven your worldly work; if His comfort does not dry your tears, His strength support you, His grace sanctify you, then—no matter what your outward state, and your possessions, your powers, your happiness—you are poor and unblessed. But if He is thus with you in all your ways, if you have resolved, and are keeping the resolution, “The LORD shall be my GOD,” then is yours the state, or it is growing towards the state of the “two bands.” One more objection somewhat akin to this last, must be answered. There are some who say, “Mine was once the state of the two bands: it has long since been—or it is fast becoming—solitariness and the single staff. All thing are against me. Nothing that I put my hand to seems to prosper; I come into misfortune; the fountains of joy are dried up; my hope, my stay, are taken from me. When I look back upon the past, I look as it were up an incline down which I have rolled, or towards a pinnacle whence I have been cast down.” Now, of course, my brethren, all this may be the result of the displeasure of GOD, consequent upon your sin, or neglect of Him. Outward adversity is sometimes the effect of His wrath, sometimes it is the chastisement of displeasure, and the discipline of correction. If then in your heart, you know that you deserve such wrath, or need such correction (even then it is a blessing, and you ought to praise GOD for it, but still) you may be sure that it is the mark of disapprobation, something for you to grieve over, and seek to have removed. But if the testimony of your conscience is that you walk with GOD, then are these so-called reverses very blessings, not declines but advances, not hindrances but helps, tokens of GOD’S love upraisings of you towards heaven. Oh be like Jacob; count all mercy, get rid of selfishness, and meditate as he did, and you will prove that all is mercy, and proclaim it! You will find, for instance, that the loss of wealth took away with it the idol of your worship, the minister of your excessive pleasure; that altered position broke down your pride; that worldly sorrow led you to seek heavenly comfort; that the perfidy of so-called friends made you cease to put your trust in man, and caused you to rely on the friend that sticketh closer than a brother; that sickness and infirmity reminded you of death, and stimulated you to preparation for judgment; that the loss of those you loved, uprooted your clingings to earth, linked you to heaven, revealed to you One whom you knew not; Whom above all you ought to love; Who is better to you than sons and daughters; Who is the true and abiding Father of the fatherless, and GOD of the widow. No matter what your circumstances, how many your troubles, I tell you on the authority of God’s Word, that if you love Him, they all work together for your good; yea, they are all good in themselves. You will find them so, if you rightly review them, and each of you will be able to say, as truthfully as Jacob did, with much more meaning, because of your better knowledge and superior blessedness in CHRIST, “I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth, which Thou hast showed unto my servant . . . I am become two bands.”

Try to feel this, brethren, and to express it this night to GOD; to tell out your praises for the mercies of your past life, and, in the review of them, to pledge yourselves to Him, that you will strive henceforth to recognise blessings more quickly, to use them better, to be more grateful for them. Be these the thoughts and vows with which you consecrate the last hours of a dying year. But, knowing that so soon as you set out again, your enemy, whom sin has given the advantage over you, will come to meet you, to smite you, to turn you back from the Holy Land, forget not this night to cry, “Deliver me, I pray Thee, O LORD. Take away from me the sin which exposes me to assaults, which makes me vulnerable. Give me Thy strength: go before me with thy blessing.” Do this, brethren, persevere in it day after day, night after night: wrestle with God, refuse to let Him go—you shall surely prevail: GOD will yield all you ask; and, in honour of your victory, He will change your name from Jacob to Israel, that is, you shall no longer be remembered by the name of your deceit and your sin. You shall be known, known to angels, known to Him, as princes, and prevailers with GOD.

SERMON VIII. WORKING FOR GOD.

ST. JOHN, IX., 4.

_I must work the works of Him that sent me_, _while it is day_: _the
night cometh_, _when no man can work_.