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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Godliness, by Catherine Booth
+
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+Title: Godliness
+
+Author: Catherine Booth
+
+Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6669]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on January 12, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
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+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GODLINESS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Avinash Kothare, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+This file was produced from images generously made available by the
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+
+
+
+GODLINESS.
+
+BEING
+
+REPORTS OF A SERIES OF ADDRESSES DELIVERED AT
+JAMES'S HALL, LONDON, W., During 1881,
+
+BY
+
+MRS. CATHERINE BOOTH.
+
+_INTRODUCTION BY DANIEL STEELE, D.D._
+
+
+
+
+PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.
+
+
+In giving this volume to our American readers, we are assured that
+we are doing a special favor to all the lovers of "Christianity in
+earnest." "Aggressive Christianity," from the same talented author,
+has met with unusual favor, and has been the means of much good. We
+are confident that the present volume is in all respects equal to the
+former, and that no one can read it without great spiritual profit.
+
+The Introduction, by Dr. Daniel Steele, is a forcible presentation
+of the main doctrines of the book, and is creditable to the head and
+heart of the writer, and a commendation which all intelligent readers
+will highly esteem.
+
+Our object in publishing these sermons, is, that their perusal may
+kindle a flame of revival in the hearts of believers, which may
+result in many turning unto the Lord.
+
+MCDONALD & GILL
+
+BOSTON, MASS.
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
+
+
+In presenting another volume of reports of my Addresses, I have only
+to repeat what I have said with respect to similar books before--
+Read, for the sake of getting more light and more blessing to your
+soul, and you will, I trust, partake of the good which many have
+professed to receive at the West-End services, wherein most of these
+words were first spoken.
+
+I am well aware that, in such imperfect reports of, for the most
+part, extemporaneous utterances, often most hurriedly corrected,
+there may be found abundant ground for criticism; but, if this book
+may be the means of leading only a few souls to devote themselves
+more fully to God and to the salvation of men, I shall be more than
+compensated for any unfriendly criticism with which it may meet.
+
+I have not sought to please any but the Lord, and to His fatherly
+loving-kindness I commend both the book and its readers.
+
+CATHERINE BOOTH.
+
+_London, Nov._ 10, 1881.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+The sermons of Mrs. Booth already re-published under the title of
+"_Aggressive Christianity_," came to American Christians as a tonic to
+their weakness, and a stimulant to their inertness.
+
+The sermons in the present volume are a much-needed prophylactic, a
+safeguard against several practical errors in dealing with souls;
+errors which lead them into Egyptian darkness, instead of the
+marvelous light.
+
+The sermon on _Repentance_ is a most faithful showing up of spurious
+repentance, the vain substitute for a downright abandonment of every
+form of sin, and right-about facing towards the Lord. In directness and
+point, it is a model for earnest revival preaching,--rather, for all
+preaching to unsaved souls, outside the church, or within it. All of
+these will be found in some subterfuge, which must be ruthlessly torn
+down, before it will be abandoned for the cleft Rock.
+
+The sermon on _Saving Faith_ is next in order. The disastrous
+consequences of what, for the want of a better description, maybe
+styled an Antinomian faith, an unrepentant assent of the intellect to
+the historic facts of the Gospel, which too many evangelists and
+other religious teachers are calling saving faith, are clearly set
+forth and plainly labeled, POISON. This spurious trust in Christ
+following a superficial repentance, which has never felt the
+desperate sinfulness and real misery of sin, has furnished our
+churches with a numerous class of members, aptly described by the
+prophet Micah: "The sin of Israel is great and unrepented of, yet
+they will lean on the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us?" We
+are convinced that much of the work of the faithful and pungent
+preacher, who preaches with his eye fixed on the great white throne
+and the descending Judge, is to dislodge professors from their
+imaginary trust in a Saviour who does not save them, and probe deeply
+their hearts festering with sin, which have been hastily pronounced
+healed, "slightly healed." Many of us have incautiously said to
+awakened souls, "Only believe," before we have thrust the heart
+through and through with the sword of God's law. We have dismissed
+God's schoolmaster. The law, like the slave charged with the task of
+leading the boy to school, and of committing him to the teacher, we
+have thought to be too harsh and severe for our sentimental age, and
+have unwisely discharged, and have assumed its office of a
+_paidagogos_ to Christ, and we have missed the way, and misled a
+priceless soul. God have mercy on us, and give us humility, as He
+gave Apollos, to be set right by an anointed woman!
+
+After her timely correction of erroneous teachings on faith, Mrs.
+Booth proceeds, pruning-knife in hand, to cut away from the tree of
+modern Christianity the poisonous fungus of a "spurious charity." Her
+four sermons on _Charity_ are four beacons set on the rocks of
+counterfeit Christian love. She sets forth several infallible tests
+by which genuine love may be distinguished from the devil's base
+imitation. Like the Epistles of St. John, these sermons are full of
+touchstones for testing love, that golden principle of the Christian
+life. It would be very profitable for all professors of that perfect
+love which casteth out all tormenting fear, to apply unflinchingly
+these touch-stones to themselves. They may find the word "perfection"
+taking on a meaning deeper, broader and higher than they had ever
+before conceived. Why should not our conception of Christian
+perfection steadily grow with the increase of our knowledge of God
+and of His holy law?
+
+The sermon on _The Conditions of Effectual Prayer_, we commend
+to all Christians and to all seekers of Christ, who are mourning
+because their prayers do not prevail with God. In the clear light of
+this sermon they will find that the difficulty lies, either in the
+lack of fellowship with Jesus Christ, or of obedience to His
+commands, or in the absence from their hearts of the interceding
+Spirit, or in defective faith. In the discussion of these hindrances
+to prayer, the preacher lays open the heart, and with a skilful
+spiritual surgery, searches it to the very bottom. The incisiveness
+of her style, her courage and plain dealing with her hearers, tearing
+off the masks of sin and selfishness, the various guises in which
+these masquerade in many Christian hearts and obstruct their access
+to a throne of grace, remind us of Dr. Finney's unsparing exposure
+and condemnation of these foes to Christian holiness, and of John
+Wesley's cutting up by the roots "Sin in Believers."
+
+In this sermon Mrs. Booth turns her attention to another phase of
+faith and of practical error in the guidance of souls to Christ. Her
+views on this vexed question are not extreme but philosophical and
+scriptural. She teaches that God has made the bestowment of salvation
+simultaneous with the exercise of faith, and that "telling a person
+to believe he is saved, before he is saved, is telling him to believe
+a lie." But she insists that the act of faith is put forth with the
+special aid of the Holy Spirit giving an assurance that the blessing
+sought will be granted. This assurance, or earnest, given by the
+Spirit, becomes the basis on which the final act of faith rests,
+namely, "I believe that I receive." This corresponds with William
+Taylor's Divine "ascertainment of the fact of the sinner's surrender
+to God, and his acceptance of Christ," before justification.
+[Footnote: Election of Grace, pp. 38-42.] Both teachers agree with
+Wesley's analysis of faith which teaches that the fourth and last
+step, "He doth it," can be taken only by the special enabling power
+of the Holy Spirit, [Footnote: Sermons. Patience, Section 13; Scripture
+Way of Salvation, Section 17; and Whedon on Mark xi. 24.] All three
+locate the Divine efficiency before the declaration, "I believe that I
+receive," or "have received" (R. V.), making that declaration rest upon
+the perception of a Divine change within the consciousness. They all
+insist that saving faith is not a mere humanly moral exercise, but
+that power to believe with the heart descends from God, and that it
+must be waited for in prayer, and that it becomes in the believer a
+series of supernatural and spiritual acts, a habit of soul, at once
+the seed and fruit of the Divine life-stirring, uniting in itself the
+characters of penitent humility, self-renunciation, simple trust, and
+absolute obedience grounded in love. These teachers magnify the
+Divine element in faith. We look in vain in their writings for any
+such direction to a penitent as this, "Believe that you are saved,
+because, God says so in His Word," but rather believe that you are
+saved when you hear His Spirit crying, Abba, Father, in your heart.
+
+Many modern teachers fall into the error of treating saving faith as
+an unaided intellectual act to be performed, at will, at any time. It
+is rather a spiritual act possible only when prompted by the Holy
+Spirit, who incites to faith only when He sees true repentance and a
+hearty surrender to God. Then the Spirit reveals Christ and assists
+to grasp Him. In the refutation of the high predestinarian doctrine
+that faith is an irresistible grace sovereignly bestowed upon the
+elect, there is great danger of falling into the opposite error,
+called Pelagianism, which makes saving faith an exercise which the
+natural man is competent to put forth without the help of the Holy
+Spirit. The real guilt of unbelief lies in that voluntary
+indifference toward Christ, and impenitence of heart, in which the
+Holy Spirit cannot inspire saving faith.
+
+In our introduction to "_Aggressive Christianity_," we advertised, in
+behalf of the American churches, a universal want--Enthusiasm. In her
+brief Exeter-Hall address, Mrs. Booth discloses the source of the
+supply. Holiness is the well-spring of enthusiasm. Hence it is not a
+spring freshet, but an overflowing river of power in all its possessors,
+and, notably in the Salvation Army, bearing the unchurched masses of
+England on its bosom. A holy enthusiasm is contagious and conquering. We
+cannot touch the people with the icicle of logic; but they will not fail
+to bow to the scepter of glowing and joyful love. Few men can reason;
+all can feel. Enthusiasm and full salvation, like the Siamese twins,
+cannot be separated and live. The error of the modern pulpit is that of
+the blacksmith hammering cold steel--a faint impression and huge labor.
+The baptism of fire softening our assemblies would lighten the
+preacher's toil and multiply its productiveness.
+
+The four addresses on _Holiness_ are hortatory rather than
+argumentative or exegetical. They are spiritual cyclones. It is
+difficult to see how any Christian could withstand these impassioned
+appeals to make what Joseph Cook calls "an affectionate, total,
+irreversible, eternal, self-surrender to Jesus Christ, as both
+Saviour and Lord," in order to attain that "perfect similarity of
+feeling with God," wherein evangelical perfection consists.
+
+It gives me great pleasure to have some humble part in echoing
+across the American continent these glowing utterances from the lips
+of this modern Deborah, the Christian prophetess raised up by God for
+the deliverance of His people from captivity to worldliness and
+religious apathy. "Would God that all the Lord's people," men and
+women, "were prophets, and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon
+them!"
+
+  "Shall we the Spirit's course restrain,
+    Or quench the heavenly fire?
+  Let God His messengers ordain,
+    And whom He will inspire!
+  Blow as He list, the Spirit's choice
+    Of instruments we bless:
+  We will, if Christ be preached, rejoice,
+    And wish the word success."
+
+DANIEL STEELE.
+
+_Reading, Mass., Nov._ 23, 1883.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+REPENTANCE
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+SAVING FAITH
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CHARITY
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CHARITY AND REBUKE
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CHARITY AND CONFLICT
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+CHARITY AND LONELINESS
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CONDITIONS OF EFFECTUAL PRAYER
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE PERFECT HEART
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+HOW TO WORK FOR GOD WITH SUCCESS
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+ENTHUSIASM AND FULL SALVATION
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+HINDRANCES TO HOLINESS
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+ADDRESSES ON HOLINESS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+REPENTANCE,
+
+
+  And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of Heaven is at band.--MATT.
+  iii. 2.
+
+  From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the
+  Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.--MATT. iv. 17.
+
+  "Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly
+  vision: but shewed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and
+  throughout all the coasts of Judaea, and then to the Qentiles, that
+  they should repent and torn to God, and do works meet for
+  repentance."--ACTS xxvi. 19,20.
+
+In the mouths of three witnesses--John the Baptist, Jesus Christ,
+and the Apostle Paul--this word shall be established, namely, that
+repentance is an _indispensable_ condition of entering the kingdom of
+God.
+
+People generally are all at sea oh this subject, as though insisting
+that repentance were an arbitrary arrangement on the part of God. I
+believe God has made human salvation as easy as the Almighty,
+Infinite mind could make it. But there is a necessity in the case,
+that we should "repent and turn to God." It is just as necessary that
+my feelings be changed and brought to repentance towards God, as it
+is that the wicked, disobedient boy, should have his feelings brought
+back into harmony with his father before he can be forgiven.
+Precisely the same laws of mind are brought into action in both
+cases, and there is the same necessity in both.
+
+If there is any father here who has a prodigal son, I ask, How is it
+that you are not reconciled to your son? You love him--love him
+intensely. Probably you are more conscious of your love for him than
+for any other of your children. Your heart yearns over him every day;
+you pray for him night and day; you dream of him by night; your
+bowels yearn over your son, and you say, with David, "Absalom,
+Absalom, my son, my son." Why are you not reconciled? Why not pat him
+on the head, or stroke his face, and say, "My dear lad, I am well
+pleased with you. I love you complacently; I give you my
+approbation?" Why are you always reproving him? Why are you obliged
+to hold him at arm's length? Why can you not live on amicable terms
+with him? Why can you not have him come in and out, and live with you
+on the same terms as the affectionate, obedient daughter? "Oh!" you
+say, "the case is different; I cannot. It is not, 'I would not;' but,
+'_I cannot_.' Before that can possibly be, the boy's feelings
+must be changed towards me. He is at war with me; he has mistaken
+notions of me; he thinks I am hard, and cruel, and exacting, and
+severe. I have done all a father could do, but he sees things
+differently, to what they are, and has harbored these hard feelings
+against me until he hates me, and will go on in defiance of my will."
+You say, "It is a necessity that, as a wise and righteous father, I
+must insist on a change in him. I cannot receive him as a son, till
+he comes to my feet. He must confess his sin, and ask me to forgive
+him. Then, oh! how gladly will my fatherly affection gush out! How I
+should run to meet him, and put my arms around his neck! but there is
+a 'cannot' in the case." Just so. It is not that He does not love
+you, sinner; it is not that the great, benevolent heart of God has
+not, as it were, wept tears of blood over you; it is not that He
+would not put His loving arms around you this moment, if you would
+only come to His feet, and confess you were wrong, and seek His
+pardon; but, otherwise, He may not--He _cannot_. The laws of His
+universe are against Him doing so. The good, it may be, of millions
+of immortal beings, is involved. He dare not, and He _cannot,_ until
+there is a change of mind _in you._ You must repent. "Except ye repent,
+ye shall all likewise perish."
+
+Well, if repentance be an indispensable condition of salvation, let
+us glance at it for a moment, and try to find out what repentance
+really is; and, oh! how full of confusion the world and the church
+are upon this subject! I say it, because I know it by converse with
+hundreds of people. May the Holy Spirit help us!
+
+Well, first, repentance is not merely conviction of sin. Oh! if it
+only were, what a different world we should have to-night, for there
+are tens of thousands on whose hearts God's Spirit has done His
+office by convincing them of sin. I am afraid we should be perfectly
+alarmed, astounded, confounded, if we had any conception of the
+multitudes whom God has convinced of sin, as He did Agrippa and
+Festus. Oh! I could not tell you the numbers of people, who, in our
+anxious meetings, have grasped my hand, and said, "Oh! what would I
+give to feel as I once felt! There was a time, fifteen, or seventeen,
+or twenty years ago," and so on, "when I was so deeply convinced of
+sin that I could scarcely sleep, or eat--that I could find no rest;
+but, instead of going on till I found peace, I got diverted, cooled
+down, and now, I feel as hard as a stone." I am afraid there are tens
+of thousands in this condition--once convinced of sin.
+
+There are thousands of others, who are convinced _now_. They say, "Yes,
+it is true what the minister says. I know I ought to lay down the
+weapons of my warfare against God; I know I ought to cut off this right
+hand, and pluck out this right eye." They are convinced of sin, but they
+go no further. That is not repentance. They live this week as they did
+last. There is no response to the Spirit; they resist the Holy Ghost.
+
+Neither is repentance mere sorrow for sin. I have seen people weep
+bitterly, and writhe and struggle, but yet hug on to their idols, and
+in vain you try to shake them from them. Oh! if Jesus Christ would
+have saved them with those idols, they would have no objection at
+all. If they could have got through the strait gate with this one
+particular idol, they would have gone through long since; but to part
+with that--that is another thing. Such people will weep like your
+stubborn child, when you want him to do something which he does not
+want to do. He will cry, and when you apply the rod he will cry
+harder, but he will not yield. When he yields, he becomes a penitent;
+but, until he does, he is merely a convicted sinner. When God applies
+the rod of His Spirit, the rod of His providence, the rod of His
+Word, sinners will cry, and wince, and whine, and make you believe
+they are praying, and want to be saved, but all the while they are
+holding their necks as stiff as iron. They will not _submit_.
+The moment they submit, they become true penitents, and get saved.
+There is no mistake more common than for people to suppose they are
+penitents when they are not. There are some of you in this condition,
+I know. I am afraid you are quite mistaken--you are not penitents.
+God is true though every man should be a liar; and, if you had
+sought, as you say you have, and perhaps, think you have; if you had
+been sincere and honest with God, you would have been saved years
+ago. Oh! may God, the Holy Spirit, help you to come out and be
+HONEST. That is what God wants--that you be honest. "Oh," says He,
+"why cover ye my altar with tears, and bring your vain oblations?
+Just be honest, and I will be honest with you and bless you; but
+while you come before Me and weep and profess, and bring the halt,
+and the maimed, and the blind, a curse be upon you." He looks at you
+afar off. Be honest. Repentance is not mere sorrow for sin. You may
+be ever so sorry, and all the way down to death be hugging on to some
+forbidden possession, as was the young ruler. _That_ is not repentance.
+
+Neither is repentance a promise that you will forsake sin in the
+future. Oh! if it were, there would be many penitents here to-night.
+There is scarcely a poor drunkard that does not promise, in his own
+mind, or to his poor wife, or somebody, that he will forsake his
+cups. There is scarcely any kind of a sinner that does not
+continually promise that he will give up his sin, and serve God, but
+he does _not do it_.
+
+Then what is _repentance_? _Repentance is simply renouncing
+sin_--turning round from darkness to light--from the power of Satan
+unto God. This is giving up sin in your heart, in purpose, in
+intention, in desire, resolving that you will give up every evil
+thing, and DO IT NOW. Of course, this involves sorrow, for how will
+any sane man turn himself round from a given course into another, if
+he does not repent having taken that course? It implies, also, hatred
+of, sin. He hates the course he formerly took, and turns round from
+it. He is like the prodigal, when he sat in the swine-yard amongst
+the husks and the filth, he fully resolved, and at last he acts. He
+went, and that was the test of his penitence! He might have sat
+resolving and promising till now, if he had lived as long, and he
+would never have got the father's kiss, the father's welcome, if he
+had not started; but he went. He left the filth, the swine-yard, the
+husks--he trampled them under his feet; he left the citizen of that
+country, and gave up all his subterfuges and excuses, and went to his
+father honestly, and said, "I have sinned!" which implied a great
+deal more in his language then than it does in ours now. "I have
+sinned against Heaven, and before thee;" and then comes the proof of
+his submission, "and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me
+as one of thy hired servants"--put me in a stable, or set me to clean
+the boots, so that I can be in thy family and have thy smile. That is
+repentance--Jesus Christ's own beautiful illustration of true
+penitence. Have you done that? Have you forsaken the accursed thing?
+Have you cut off that particular thing which the Holy Spirit has
+revealed to you? Is the _"but"_ the hindrance that keeps you out
+of the Kingdom? You know what it is, and you will never get saved
+until you renounce it. Submission is the test of penitence. My child
+may be willing to do a hundred and fifty other things, but, if he is
+not willing to submit on the one point of controversy, he is a rebel,
+and remains one until he yields.
+
+Now, here is just the difference between a spurious and a real
+repentance. I am afraid we have thousands in our churches who had a
+spurious repentance: they were convinced of sin--they were sorry for
+it; they wanted to live a better life, to love God in a sort of
+general way; but they skipped over the real point of controversy with
+God; they hid it from their pastor, perhaps, and from the deacons,
+and from the people who talked with them.
+
+Now, I say, Abraham might have been willing to have given up every
+other thing that he possessed; but, if he had not been willing to
+give up Isaac, all else would have been useless. It is your Isaac God
+wants.  You have got an Isaac, just as the young ruler had his
+possessions.  You have got something that you are holding on to, that
+the Holy Spirit says you must let go, and you say, "I can't." Very
+well; then you must stop outside the kingdom. I beseech you, do not
+deceive yourselves by supposing that you repent, for you do not; but,
+oh! my dear friends, let me beseech you to repent. The apostle says,
+"Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men;" and this
+is, I believe, the greatest work of the ministry.  To do what?  To
+persuade men to submit. We are constantly talking to thousands of
+people who know just what God wants of them.  We cannot bring many of
+them any new light or new Gospel. They know all about it. They used
+to tell me that so often, that I longed for a congregation of
+heathen, which I have found since then. Consequently, when they hear
+the Gospel, like the publicans and sinners of old, they go into the
+kingdom, while such as some of you who are the natural children of
+the kingdom, are shut out, because when they hear they receive, and
+submit, and obey, while you stand outside and hold on to your idols,
+and reason, and quibble, and reject!  My dear friends, let me
+persuade you to trample under foot that idol, to tear down that
+refuge of lies, and to come to God honestly, and say, "Lord, here I
+am, to be a servant, to be nothing, to do anything, to suffer
+anything. I know I shall be happier with Thy smile and Thy blessing
+than all these evil things now make me without Thee."  When you come
+to a full surrender, my friends, you will get what you have been
+seeking, some of you, for years.
+
+But then another difficulty comes in, and people say, "I have not
+the power to repent." Oh! yes, you have. That is a grand mistake. You
+have the power, or God would not command it. You can repent. You can
+this moment lift up your eyes to Heaven, and say, with the prodigal,
+"Father, I have sinned, and I renounce my sin." You may not be able
+to weep--God nowhere requires or commands that; but you are able,
+this very moment, to renounce sin, in purpose, in resolution, in
+intention. Mind, don't confound the renouncing of the sin, with the
+power of saving yourself from it. If you renounce it, Jesus will come
+and save you from it. Like the man with the withered hand--Jesus
+intended to heal that man. Where was the power to come from to heal
+him? From Jesus, of course. The benevolence, the love, that prompted
+that healing, all came from Jesus; but Jesus wanted a condition. What
+was it? The response of the man's will; and so He said, "Stretch
+forth thy hand." If he had been like some of you, he would have said,
+"What an unreasonable command! You know I cannot do it--I cannot."
+Some of you say that; but I say you can, and you will have to do it,
+or you will be lost. What did Jesus want? He wanted that, "I will,
+Lord," inside the man--the response of his will. He wanted him to
+say, "Yes, Lord;" and, the moment he said that, Jesus supplied
+strength, and he stretched it forth, and you know what happened.
+
+Don't look forward, and say, "I shall not have strength;" that is
+not your matter--that is His. He will hold you up;--He is able, when
+you once commit yourself to Him. Now then, say, "_I will._" Never mind
+what you suffer--it shall be done. He will pour in the oil and balm. His
+glorious, blessed presence will do more for you in one hour, than all
+your struggling, praying, and wrestling have done all these weary years.
+He will lift you up out of the pit. You are in the mire now, and the
+more you struggle the more you sink; but He will lift you out of it, and
+put your feet on the rock, and then you will stand firm. Stretch out
+your withered hand, whatever it may be;--say, "I will, Lord." You have
+the power, and mind, you have the obligation, which is universal and
+immediate. God "now commandeth all men everywhere to repent," and to
+believe the Gospel. What a tyrant He must be if He commands that, and
+yet He knows you have not the power!
+
+Now, do you repent? Mind the old snare. Not, do you weep? The
+feeling will come after the surrender.
+
+Now, do not say, "I do not feel enough." Do you feel enough to be
+willing to forsake your sin? that is the point. Any soul who does not
+repent enough to forsake his sin, is _not a penitent at all!_
+When you repent enough to forsake your sin, that moment your
+repentance is sincere, and you may take hold of Jesus with a firm
+grasp. You have a right to appropriate the promise, then it is "look
+and live." "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be
+saved."
+
+Will you come to that point now? Don't begin making an excuse.
+_Now!--all men! everywhere!_--NOW! Oh! my friend, if you had done that
+ten years ago! You have been accumulating sin, condemnation, and wrath
+ever since. God commanded you these ten years to repent, and believe the
+Gospel, and here you are yet. How many sermons have you
+heard?--invitations rejected? How much blessed persuasion and reasoning
+of the Holy Spirit have you resisted?--how much of the grace of God have
+you received in vain? I tremble to think what an accumulated load of
+abused privilege, lost opportunity, and wasted influence, such people
+will have to give an account of. Talk about hell!--the weight of this
+will be hell enough.  You don't seem to think anything of the way you
+treat God. Oh! people are very much awake to any evil they do to their
+fellow-men. They can much more easily see the sin of ruining or injuring
+their neighbors than injuring the great God; but He says, "Will a man
+rob God? Yet ye have robbed me." Do you not see; the awful weight of
+condemnation that comes upon you for putting off, rejecting, resisting,
+vascilating, halting, while He says, _Now--now?_  He has had a right to
+every breath you have drawn, to all your influence, every hour, of every
+day of all your years. Is it not time you ended that controversy?  He
+may do with you as He did with such people once before--swear in His
+wrath that you shall not enter into His rest. Are you not provoking
+Him as they provoked Him? Oh! my friend, be persuaded now to repent.
+Let your sin go away, and come to the feet of Jesus. For your own
+sake be persuaded. For the peace, the joy, the power, the glory, the
+gladness of living a life of consecration to God, and service to your
+fellow-men, yield; but most of all, for the love He bears you, submit.
+
+A great, rough man (stricken down), said to my husband, a few weeks
+ago, when he looked up to the place where other people were being
+saved, "Mr. Booth, I would not go there for a hundred pounds!"  My
+husband whispered, "Will you go there for love?" and, after a
+minute's hesitation, the man, brushing the great tears away, rose up,
+and followed him.
+
+Will you go there for love--the love of Jesus!--the great love
+wherewith He loved you and gave Himself for you? Will you, for the
+great yearning with which your Father has been following you all
+these years--for His love's sake, will you come? Go down at His feet
+and submit. The Lord help you! Amen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+SAVING FAITH.
+
+
+  And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?
+  And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be
+  saved, and thy house.--ACTS xvi. 30,31.
+
+This is one of the most abused texts in the Bible, and one which,
+perhaps, has been made to do quite as much work for the devil as for
+God. Let every saint present, ask in faith for the light of the Holy
+Ghost, while we try rightly to apply it. Let us enquire:--
+
+1. _Who are to believe_? 2. _When are they to believe_? 3. _How are they
+to believe_?
+
+I. Who are to believe? To whom does the Holy Spirit say, "Believe on
+the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved?" Now mark, I answer,
+_not_ to all sinners indiscriminately. And here is a grand
+mistake in a great deal of the teaching of this age--that these words
+are wrested from their explanatory connexion, and from numbers of
+other texts bearing on the same subject, and held up independently of
+all the conditions which must ever, and did ever, in the mind and
+practice of the Apostles, accompany them; indeed, it has only been
+within the last sixty or seventy years that this new gospel has
+sprung into existence, preaching indiscriminately to unawakened,
+unconverted, unrepentant sinners--"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ."
+It seems to me, that great injury has been done to the cause of
+Christ by thus wrongly dividing the Word of truth, to say nothing of
+the unphilosophical character of such a course, for how can an
+unawakened, unconvicted, unrepentant sinner, believe? As soon might
+Satan believe. It is an utter impossibility. Thousands of these
+people say, "I do believe." My dear son, only a little time ago, on
+the top of an omnibus, was speaking to a man who was the worse for
+liquor, and using very improper language; trying to show him the
+danger of his evil, wicked course, as a transgressor of the law of
+God. "Oh!" said the man, "it is not by works, it is by faith, and I
+believe as much as you do." "Yes," said my son, "but what do you
+believe?" "Oh," he said, "I believe in Jesus Christ, and of course I
+shall be saved." That is a sample of thousands. I am meeting with
+them daily. They believe there was such a man as Jesus, and that He
+died for sinners, and for them, but as to the exercise of saving
+faith, they know no more about it than Agrippa or Felix, as is
+manifest when they come to die, for then, these very people are
+wringing their hands, tearing their hair, and sending for Christians
+to come and pray with them. If they had believed, why all this alarm
+and concern on the approach of death? They were only believers of the
+head, and not of the heart; that is, they were but theoretical
+believers in the facts recorded in this book, but not believers in
+the Scriptural sense, or their faith would have saved them. Now, we
+maintain that it is useless, and as unphilosophical as it is
+unscriptural, to preach "only believe" to such characters; and
+Christians have not done their duty, and have not discharged their
+responsibility to these souls, when they have told them that Jesus
+died for them, and that they are to believe in Him! They have a much
+harder work to do, and that is, "to open their eyes" to a sense of
+their danger, and make them, by the power of the Spirit, realize the
+dreadful truth that they are sinners, that they are sick, and then
+they will run to the Physician.
+
+The eyes of the soul must be opened to such a realization of sin,
+and such an apprehension of the consequences of sin, as shall lead to
+an earnest desire to be saved from sin. God's great means of doing
+this is the law, as the schoolmaster, to drive sinners to receive
+Christ as their salvation.
+
+There is not one case in the New Testament in which the apostles
+urged souls to believe, or in which a soul is narrated as believing,
+in which we have not good grounds to believe that these preparatory
+steps of conviction and repentance, had been taken. The only one was
+that of Simon the sorcerer. He was, as numbers of people are, in
+great religious movements, carried away by the influence of the
+meeting, and the example of those around him, and professed to
+believe. Doubtless, he did credit the fact that Jesus died on the
+cross. He received the facts of Christianity into his mind, and, in
+that sense, he became a believer--in the same sense that tens of
+thousands are in these days--and he was baptized. But when the
+testing point came, as to whose interests were paramount with him,
+his own or God's, then he manifested the true state of the case, as
+the apostle said, "I see thy heart is not right with God." And nobody
+is converted whose heart is not right with God! That is the test. If
+Simon had been converted, his heart would have been right with God
+and he would not have supposed the Holy Ghost could have been bought
+for money. And Paul added, "For I perceive that thou art still in the
+gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity." And what further
+did he say to him? "Therefore, at once believe"? No; he did not.
+"Therefore, repent, and pray God, if, perhaps, the thought of thine
+heart may be forgiven thee." Repent first! and then believe, and get
+this wickedness forgiven, and so we get a double lesson in the same
+passage. This Simon was the only person we have any record of, as
+believing, where there is not in the passage itself, taken with the
+context, a reasonable and rational evidence, that these preparatory
+steps of conviction and repentance, were taken before the teaching of
+faith, or the exercise and confession of faith. Simon had this faith
+of the head, but not of the heart, and, therefore, it ended in defeat
+and despair.
+
+Some have written me this week that they had believed. They had been
+persuaded into a profession of faith, but no fruits followed. Ah! it
+was not the faith of the heart: it was the faith of the head--like
+that of Simon's--and it left you worse than it found you, and you
+have been groping and grovelling, ever since. But do not think that
+was real faith, and that therefore real faith has failed, but be
+encouraged to begin again, and _repent_. Try the real thing, for
+Satan always gets up a counterfeit. Therefore, don't go down in
+despair because the wrong kind of faith did not succeed. That shall
+not make the real faith of God of none effect--God forbid!
+
+Look at one or two other cases--the three thousand in a day. Surely
+this is a scriptural illustration. Surely no one will call that
+anti-Gospel or legal. What was the first work Peter did? He drove the
+knife of God's convincing truth into their hearts, and made them
+_cry out_. He awoke them to the truth of their almost lost and
+damned condition, till they said, "What must we do to be saved?" They
+were so concerned, they were so pricked in their hearts, their eyes
+were so opened to the terrible consequences of their sin, that they
+cried aloud before the vast multitude, "Men and brethren, what must
+we do to be saved?" He convinced them of sin, and thus followed the
+order of God.
+
+Again, the eunuch is often quoted as an illustration of faith; but
+what state of mind was he in? Was he a careless, unconvicted sinner?
+There he was--an Ethiopian, a heathen; but where had he been? To
+Jerusalem, to worship the true and living God, in the best way he
+knew, and as far as he understood; and then, what was he doing when
+Philip found him? He was not content with the mere worship of the
+temple, whistling a worldly tune on his way back. He was searching
+the Scriptures. He was honestly seeking after God, and the Holy Ghost
+always knows where such souls are; and He said to Philip, "Go, join
+thyself to that chariot: there is a man seeking after Me; there is a
+man whose heart is honestly set on finding Me. Go and preach Christ,
+and tell him to believe." That man would have sacrificed, or done, or
+lost anything, for salvation, and, as soon as Philip expounded the
+way of faith, he received it, of course, as all such souls will.
+
+Saul, on his way to Damascus, is another instance. Jesus Christ was
+the preacher there, and surely, He could not be mistaken. His
+philosophy was sound. Where did He begin? What did He say to Saul? He
+saw there an honest-hearted man. Saul was sincere, so far as he
+understood, and if, in any case, there needed to be the immediate
+reception of Christ by faith, it was in his. But the Lord Jesus
+Christ did not say one word about faith. "Saul, Saul, why
+_persecutest_ thou Me?"--tearing the bandages of deception off
+his eyes, and letting him see the wickedness of his conduct. When
+Saul said, "Who art Thou, Lord?" He repeated the accusation. He did
+not come in with the oil of comfort; He did not plaster the wound up,
+and make it whole in a moment; but He said, "I am Jesus of Nazareth,
+whom thou persecutest." He ran the knife in again, and opened Paul's
+eyes wider, and his wounds wider, too, and sent him bleeding on to
+Damascus, where he was three days before he got the healing. He had
+to send for a poor human instrument, and he had to hear and obey his
+words, before the scales fell from his eyes, and before the pardon of
+his sins was pronounced, and the Holy Ghost came into his soul. I
+wonder what Paul was doing those three days! Not singing songs of
+thanksgiving and praise. That had to come. Oh! what do you think he
+was doing? He neither ate nor drank, and he was in the dark. What was
+he doing? No doubt he was praying. No doubt he was seeking after this
+Christ, who had spoken to him in the way. No doubt he was looking
+with horror upon his past life, and abjuring forever his accursed
+antagonism to Jesus Christ, and to His Gospel. Of course, he was
+bringing forth fruits meet for repentance, according to the Divine
+order--Acts xxvi.: And then came Ananias, and preached Christ unto
+him, and he believed unto salvation, and the scales fell off, and his
+mouth was filled with praise and thanksgiving to God.
+
+Cornelius, is another instance, but what was the state of his mind
+and heart? We know that he feared God and wrought righteousness, as
+far as he was able. He gave alms to the people, and prayed day and
+night. That is more than some of you ever did, who live in the Gospel
+times. You never prayed all night about your souls. No wonder if you
+should lose them--not half a night, some of you. But Cornelius
+did--he was seeking _God_. He honestly wanted to know Him. He was
+willing, at all costs, to do His will: consequently, the Lord sent
+him the glorious message of the revelation of Jesus Christ.
+
+I might go on multiplying instances, but I must stop. We have said
+enough to show who are to believe. Truly penitent sinners, and they
+only.
+
+This text is to a repenting, enlightened, convicted sinner. Now,
+some of you are enlightened, convinced, and so wretched that you
+cannot sleep. You _do_ repent. You are the very people, then, to
+whom this text comes--Believe. You are just in the condition of the
+gaoler.
+
+"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved," and now
+let us look what state of mind the gaoler was in. We see, from the
+whole narrative, how his eyes had been opened. The earthquake had
+done that. Some people need an earthquake before they get their eyes
+opened, and it has to be a loud one, too. The gaoler's eyes were
+opened, and he made the best use of his time. He was lashing their
+backs a little while before! Talk about a change--here was a change.
+"Sirs, what must I do to be saved? I am ready to do anything, only
+tell me what." And when a soul comes to that state of mind, he has
+nothing more to do but to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And he
+came in, trembling, and went down on his knees, and washed their
+stripes. When you get to that state of mind, you will soon get saved.
+You will have nothing more to do but to believe. You will find it
+easy work, then.
+
+II. When is a sinner to believe? When he repents? Here again I am
+going to answer some of your letters. One writes: "I am afraid I do
+not realize my sin sufficiently. I have no particular agony on
+account of sin, but I do see my whole life to have been one huge
+error and sin." There is nothing more common than for souls to delude
+themselves on this point of feeling. That gentleman confounds feeling
+with conviction. He thinks because he has not this extreme agony
+which some have, therefore he is not sufficiently convinced, while
+the Holy Ghost has opened his eyes to see that his whole life has
+been one huge error and sin. He is convinced that it has been
+_all_ sin--not one isolated sin here and there abstracted from
+his life, but such a perception of his true character that he sees
+his whole life to have been sin. Surely, my friend, you are convinced.
+What else but the Holy Ghost could have shown you _that_? Now, the truly
+repentant soul first sees sin; secondly, he _hates_ sin; thirdly, he
+_renounces_ sin. Now, let me try you by each of these tests. Don't let
+Satan deceive you, and make you belie the exercises of your own mind.
+Face the facts, and when you have come to a conclusion, don't allow him
+to raise a controversy, but stick to your facts, and go on from them, or
+you will never get saved. Satan is an accuser of the brethren, and, I
+suppose, of the sisters too. I will be as honest and as searching
+with you as I possibly can. I will not spare the probe, but when we
+have probed and found the truth, stand on it, for Christ's sake, and
+don't let it go from under your feet, because Satan will try to cheat
+you out of your common sense, conscience, and convictions.
+
+You _see_ sin. An entirely unawakened soul does not see sin;
+that is, in its true character, in its heinousness, in its
+consequences. He admits that all people are sinners. Oh! yes; but he
+does not see the deadly, damning character of sin. He does not see
+what an evil and bitter thing sin is in itself. Now, the Holy Ghost
+alone can open the soul's eyes to see this. Without Him, all my
+preaching, or any other preaching, even the preaching of the angels,
+if they were permitted to preach, might go on to all eternity, and it
+would never convince of sin. If you see sin, it is the Holy Ghost who
+has opened your eyes. Praise Him, and take encouragement, my friend.
+If God has thus far dealt with you, and opened your eyes to see the
+character and consequences of sin, does it not augur well that He
+desires also to save you from it? He has opened your eyes in order
+that He may anoint them with eye-salve, and cause you to see light in
+His light.
+
+Now, have you got thus far? You have told me that your life has been
+one great sin; others say, one particular form of sin. Whatever it
+is, if you are convinced of sin, it is the Holy Ghost who has
+convinced you; therefore, thank God, and take courage thus far.
+
+Further, the true penitent _hates_ sin; that is, his feelings
+towards sin are quite different to what they were in the past. There
+was a time when you could commit sin, almost without notice, without
+concern. People do not realize the great change that has taken place
+in them in this respect. They are brought gradually to it. Translate
+yourself back into your unawakened state. How did you live then? The
+very things that now cause you such distress, you practised every
+day, and they gave you no concern. The things that horrify you now,
+in the very thought or temptation to them, you then were daily
+practising without compunction. You had no hatred to, no dread of
+sin. You were willing bondslaves of Satan. Now, you are his unwilling
+slave. Then, you _ran_ towards sin, now, he has to drive you,
+and when you fall, it is against your will. You hate sin. Now, mind,
+this is not being saved from it. This is not saying you have power to
+save yourself from it. In fact, this is the very difficulty
+personified by the apostle, when representing the ineffectual
+struggles of a convicted sinner. The things you would not, those you
+do, and the things you would, those you have not the power to do.
+Nevertheless, you _desire_ to do them. There is the difference.
+Once you did not desire to do them, and, perhaps, those who did, were
+a pack of hypocrites, in your estimation. Now, you feel quite
+differently, and you struggle, and strive, and pray, and watch. Some
+of you have told me so, and yet you say, "I am again and again
+overcome." Of course you are, because you are not _saved yet_!
+But don't you see, you _desire_ to be. You hate the sin which
+enthrals you. You struggle against it. You watch against it and you
+are not overcome half so frequently, perhaps, as you were before.
+People do not see what a great deal they owe to the convincing and
+preventing power of the Holy Spirit helping their infirmity, even
+now, to cut off and pluck out the right hand and the right eye, and
+bringing them up in a waiting attitude before God, like Cornelius and
+the eunuch. You, my hearers, some of you, are following after God.
+You are longing for deliverance, are striving against sin.
+
+Take an another illustration. I don't mean that the soul has power
+to save itself from its internal maladies. That you will get when
+Jesus Christ saves you. But, I mean this: here is a soul convinced of
+sin. Here is a man who is daily addicted to drink. He is a drunkard.
+He becomes convinced of sin. Now, then, the Spirit of God says, "Will
+you give up the cup?" Then commences the struggle. Now, the question
+is, are you to teach that man that he is to go on drinking, and
+expect God to save him? Are you to keep putting before him faith, and
+telling him, "Oh! never mind your cup, but believe on the Lord Jesus
+Christ and you shall be saved"--or, are you to tell him, "you must
+put away your sin, cut off that right hand, pluck out that right eye,
+renounce that drink forever in your heart, in your purpose, in your
+will, and until you do, you cannot exercise faith on the Lord Jesus?"
+
+Here is another person addicted to lying. He, when he is convinced
+of sin, sets a watch over his lips, that he may not offend with his
+mouth, and he does succeed in so guarding himself, or the Holy Spirit
+so helps him to guard himself, that he does not lie as he used. He is
+overcome now and then, because he has not yet found the power, but he
+is resolutely, and as far as his will is concerned, cutting off this
+outward sin, and waiting in the way of obedience for full deliverance
+and salvation.
+
+There is a servant systematically robs his master's till. He goes to
+a religious meeting and is convinced. "Now," the Spirit of God says,
+"you must cut off that dishonesty. You cannot come to this meeting
+night after night pretending to want to be saved, while you are going
+on every day robbing your master! You must cut off that right hand,
+and give up that pilfering, and resolve that you will make
+restitution, and wait for Me in the way of bringing forth fruits meet
+for repentance." You see what I mean. Now, you are just here, some of
+you--you know you are. If you are addicted to any evil habit, it is
+just the same. Jesus Christ wants you to forswear that habit in your
+will, determination, and purpose. You have not the power to deliver
+yourself from it. You may struggle, as some of you tell me you are
+doing, but it overcomes you, and down you go. He knows all about
+that, but He approves of the struggle, and the effort, and the
+watchfulness, and the determination, and when He saves you, He will
+give you the power, and then you will stand and not fall, for He will
+hold you up.
+
+Now you know that you go thus far, and you know that at this moment,
+if you had the power in yourself to extinguish the force of that evil
+habit over you forever, you would do it without another moment's
+hesitation. You say, "Oh yes, I would indeed. Would to God I had the
+power." That is repentance; that is _genuine_ repentance. Now,
+what you cannot do for yourself, He meets you just where you stand,
+and says, "I will do it for you; I will break the power of that
+habit; I will deliver you out of the hands of the enemy; I will save
+you out of that bondage. Only throw your arm of faith around me, and
+I will lift you up; and I will inspire you with my Spirit; you shall
+stand in Me and by Me; and what you are now struggling to do for
+yourself, I will do for you."
+
+Then you have got thus far that you hate sin? "Yes, I have." You
+have said it in your letters to me, and there are others saying it
+who have not written to me. "Yes," you are saying, "I desire to be
+saved from it. I would save myself this very instant if I could, and
+never sin again." Would you? Is not that repentance? What else is it,
+think you?
+
+Suppose you had a disobedient and rebellious son, and he had been
+living irrespective of your law and will, wasting your money and
+trampling under foot your commandments. Suppose he comes back, he
+sees the error of his course. His eyes are opened, perhaps, by
+affliction, perhaps by want, or ten thousand other things. At any
+rate he sees it, and he comes home and says, "Oh! father, what a fool
+I have been; how wicked I have been. I see it all now--I did not see
+it when I was doing it. I see my evil course, my sins that made you
+mourn, and turned your hair grey. Oh! how I hate it all. I repent in
+dust and ashes. Father! I forsake it all! I come home to you!"  What
+would you say? Would you say, "My son, you have not repented enough.
+Go! begone! Wait till you feel it more!"  No, your paternal heart
+would go out in love and forgiveness, and you would put the kiss of
+your reconciling love upon his cheek. "Even so there is joy in the
+presence of the angels of God over one sinner that _repenteth!_"
+as there would be joy in that family circle over the return of that
+wandering child.
+
+But suppose that lad were to come and say, "Father, I do thus
+repent; I do thus forsake my sins; but there are some companions who
+will follow me so closely that I am afraid I shall again fall under
+their power, and there are some habits so terrible that I am afraid
+they will again conquer. Let me, then, be always by your side. You
+must strengthen me." What would you say? Would you not say, "Then,
+come in, my son; sit by me, live with me, and I will shield you--I
+will deliver you? Thou shalt never cross this threshhold without me.
+I will live with you; I will hold you up." And, as far as a human
+being could shield another, you would shield your son; he would never
+lack your sympathy or your strength day or night. Your Heavenly
+Father lacks neither sympathy or strength. His eye never sleeps. His
+arm never tires, and you have only to go and lay your helpless
+weakness on His Almighty strength by this one desperate leap of
+faith, and He will hold you up, even though there were a legion of
+devils around you.
+
+Lastly, you _renounce_ your sins, that is, in will, purpose, and
+determination. You say, "I never wish to grieve Him again." You
+sing it, and you feel it. "I never want to grieve Him any more;" and
+if you could only live without grieving Him, you would not much mind,
+even if it were in hell itself. Is not that penitence? You know it
+is. You renounce sin. You do not say, "Lord Jesus, save me with this
+right hand, with this right eye; Lord Jesus, save me with these
+forbidden things hanging about my skirts." No; you say, "Lord Jesus,
+save me out of them. Make me clean." That is penitence. You see it.
+You hate it. You renounce it. Now then, believe on the Lord Jesus
+Christ. Oh, Holy Spirit, reveal the simple way of faith.
+
+III. You say, "How am I to believe?" Some despairing soul asked me
+this in large letters, "How am I to believe?" How does a bride
+believe in her husband when she gives herself to him at the altar?
+She trusts him with herself. She believes in him. She makes a
+contract, and goes home, and lives as if it were true. That is
+_faith_. How do you trust your physician when you are sick, as
+you lay in repose or anguish upon your bed? You trust him with your
+case. You commit yourself to him. You believe in his skill, and obey
+his orders. Have faith like this in Jesus Christ.
+
+Trust and obey, and expect that it is going to be with you according
+to His Word.
+
+Instead of this, the faith of many people is like that of a person
+afflicted with some grievous malady. A friend tells him of a
+wonderful physician who has cured hundreds of such cases, and gives
+him abundant evidence that this doctor is able and willing to cure
+him, if he will only commit himself to his treatment. The sick man
+may thoroughly believe in the testimony of his friend about this
+physician, and yet, for some secret reason, he may refuse to put
+himself into his hands. Now, there are numbers like that with Jesus
+Christ. They believe He could cure the malady of sin on certain
+conditions. They believe He is no respecter of persons. They believe
+He has done it for hundreds as bad as they, and yet there is some
+reason why they do not _trust Him_. They hold back.
+
+Now, what you want is to give your case into His hands, and say,
+"Lord Jesus, I come as Thou hast bid me, confessing and forsaking
+sin. If I could, I would jump out of it now and forever. Thou knowest
+I come renouncing it, but not having power to save myself from it;
+and now, Lord Jesus, Thou hast said, "Him that cometh unto Me, I will
+in no wise cast out." I do come; Thou dost not cast me out; Thou dost
+take me; Thou dost receive me. Blessed, Holy Father, I give myself to
+Thee. I put my sins upon the glorious sacrifice of Thy Son. Thou hast
+said Thou wilt receive me, and pardon me for His sake. Now, I roll
+the guilty burden on His bleeding body, and I believe Thy promise, I
+trust Thee to be as good as Thy word." _That is faith_. "Oh!" said a
+dear lady, "I do not feel it."  No: you must trust first. Mark, not
+believe you are saved, but believe that He does now save you.
+
+"What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive
+them, and ye shall have them." That is the law of faith. Believe that
+ye receive it before you feel it; when you receive it then you shall
+feel it. God shall be true, and every man or devil who contradicts
+Him, a liar. Throw your arms around the Crucified. Take fast hold of
+the hand of the Son of God. Put your poor, guilty soul right at the
+foot of His cross, and say, "Thou dost receive; Thou dost pardon;
+Thou dost cleanse; Thou dost save;" and keep using the language of
+faith. I have seen numbers of souls step into liberty repeating these
+precious words in the first person, "He was wounded for _my_
+transgressions, He was bruised for _my_ iniquities, the chastisement of
+_my_ peace was laid upon Him, and by His stripes _I am_ healed." Keep
+using the language of faith all the way home to-night. Go into your
+closet and say, "I am determined to be saved, if there is any such thing
+as salvation." Resolve that if you perish, you will perish in that room,
+at the foot of the cross, suing for pardon, and you will get it. I have
+never known a soul come to this who did not soon get saved. Get into the
+lifeboat. Put off from the old stranded wreck of your own righteousness
+or your own efforts; step right into the lifeboat of His broken,
+bleeding body. Take fast hold, and resolve that you will never let go
+until the answering Spirit comes into your soul, crying, "Abba, Father,"
+and you shall know of a truth that you have passed from death unto life.
+The Lord help you. Amen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CHARITY.
+
+
+  And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest
+  of these is charity.--1 COR. xiii. 13.
+
+It must be a precious thing to be greater than _faith_, and
+greater than _hope_--it must, indeed, be precious!--and, just in
+proportion as things are valuable and precious amongst men, so much
+trouble and risk will human speculators take to counterfeit them. I
+suppose that in no department of roguery in this roguish world, has
+there been more time and ingenuity expended, than in making
+counterfeit money, especially bank notes. Just as wicked men have
+tried to imitate the most valuable of human productions for their own
+profit, so the devil has been trying to counterfeit God's most
+precious things from the beginning, and to produce something so like
+them that mankind at large should not see the difference, and,
+perhaps, in no direction has he been so successful as in producing a
+_Spurious Charity_.--I almost think he has got it to perfection
+in these days. I don't think he can very well improve on the present
+copy. This Charity--this love--is God's most precious treasure; it is
+dearer to His heart than all the vast domains of His universe--dearer
+than all the glorious beings He has created. So much so, that when
+some of the highest spirits amongst the angelic bands violated this
+love, He hurled them from the highest Heaven to the nethermost hell!
+Why? Not because He did not value those wonderful beings, but because
+He valued this _love more_. Because He saw that it was more
+important to the well-being of His universe to maintain the harmony
+of love in Heaven than to save those spirits who had allowed
+selfishness to interfere with it. So our Lord says, "I beheld Satan
+as lightning fall from Heaven."
+
+The day is coming when He will behold all the dire progeny of this
+first rebellion fall also. Haste, happy day!
+
+But, let us look for a few minutes at this precious, beautiful
+Charity. Let us try, first, to define it. What is it?
+
+_First_.--_It is Divine_. It must be shed abroad in the heart by the
+Holy Ghost.
+
+In vain do we look for this heavenly plant amongst the unrenewed
+children of men--it grows not on the corrupt soil of human nature; it
+springs only where the ploughshare of true repentance has broken up
+the fallow ground of the heart, and where faith in a crucified
+Saviour has purified it, and where the blessed Holy Spirit has taken
+permanent possession. It is the love _of_ God--not only love _to_ God,
+but _like_ God, _from_ God, and fixed on the same objects and ends which
+He loves. It is a Divine implantation by the Holy Ghost. Perhaps some of
+you are saying, "Then it is useless for me to try to cultivate it,
+because I have not got it,--exactly!" You may cut and prune and water
+forever, but you can never cultivate that which is not planted. Your
+first work is to get this love shed abroad in your heart. It is one of
+the delusions of this age that human nature only wants pruning,
+improving, developing, and it come out right. No, no! Every plant which
+my Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up. If you want this
+Divine love, you must break up the fallow ground of your hearts, and
+invite the Heavenly Husbandman to come and sow it--shed it abroad in
+your soul.
+
+_Secondly_, I want you to note that this love is a Divine principle, in
+contradistinction to the mere love of instinct. All men have love as an
+instinct; mere natural love towards those whom they like, or who do well
+for them. "If ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not
+even publicans the same?" Wicked men love one another from mere natural
+affinity, as the tiger loves its cubs. There is great confusion amongst
+professors of religion on this subject. They feel sentiments of pity and
+generosity towards their fellow-men, and they may even give their goods
+to feed the poor, and yet not have a spark of Divine Charity in their
+hearts. Saul, after God departed from him, was not wholly destitute of
+generous feeling respecting his family and kingdom. Dives in hell had
+some pity for his brethren! But neither of them had a spark of this
+Divine Charity. Mind you are not deceived; millions are!
+
+Let us note one or two points wherein a spurious and Divine Charity
+utterly and forever diverge--disagree in nature.
+
+_First._--Spurious Charity is selfish--is never exercised but
+to gratify some selfish principle in human nature. Thousands of
+motives inspire it--too many to enumerate; but we will glance at two
+or three. We read in the context that a man might give his goods to
+feed the poor, and his body to be burned, and yet be destitute of
+true Charity.
+
+Now what an anomaly. But we have wonderful illustrations that such a
+thing is possible. First, a man may do this to support and carry out
+a favorite system of intellectual belief of which he has become
+enamored, just as men become absorbed, in politics, or in what they
+consider the good of their nation, so that they will even go to the
+cannon's mouth to promote it.
+
+Further, a man may do it in order to merit eternal life. Paul did
+this when he went about to establish his own righteousness. He tells
+us afterwards that self was the mainspring of all his zeal. It was
+all his own exaltation; there was no Divine love; he was an utterly
+unrenewed, Christless, and selfish man, at the very time he was doing
+this.
+
+Or, it may be, in the third place, to gratify a naturally generous
+disposition. I used to say to a generous friend of mine, when he was
+talking in a confidential way about his giving, and the delight it
+gave him, attributing it to Divine grace--I used to put my hand on
+his, and say, "Hold! my friend; I am not so sure it is all grace. You
+like giving better than other people do receiving. Look out that you
+do not lose your reward through not taking the trouble to see what
+you give to; don't give your money to every scheme that comes across
+you. Remember that you are answerable to God for your wealth, and
+that God will demand of you HOW you have bestowed your goods." That
+is true Charity that takes the trouble to investigate relative
+claims, and tries to find out the best channels in which to give for
+God's glory and the salvation of men. Don't you put down your
+generosity to the Holy Ghost if it is not of that kind, for you will
+never receive a bit of interest for it, here or hereafter--not a
+fraction!
+
+A false Charity begins in self and ends on earth. Here is a mark for
+you to distinguish between it and God's Charity. The devil's Charity
+always contemplates the earthy part of man in a superior degree to
+the spiritual part; and here it exactly crosses and contradicts the
+Divine Charity, which always contemplates man in the entirety of his
+being, and always gives the first importance to the soul.
+
+We have plenty of spurious Charity in these days. The other day when
+I took up a so-called "religious print," and saw some fulsome things
+it had been saying about a certain individual, lately dead, I
+thought, really, would one ever imagine this were a Christian paper,
+in a Christian country? There is not the slightest recognition of a
+soul, no reference to the man's spiritual condition or his future
+state. Here are one or two of the most ordinary human qualifications
+seized on, and made the most of, to make it out that he was something
+beyond his fellows, but, as to any recognition of a soul, or of a God
+who will judge him, of a Heaven or hell, nothing!
+
+Oh, people say, when speaking of Godless, and even wicked men, "You
+must be _charitable,_ you must not judge." Satan does not care
+how much of this one-sided Charity there is; the more the better for
+his purpose; it will make people all the more comfortable in their
+sins, and get them all the more easily down to hell.
+
+My friends, are you more concerned about relieving temporal distress
+than you are about feeding famished souls? If you are, you may know
+where your charity comes from! Don't misrepresent me, and say that I
+teach all of one, and none of the other. God forbid, for, if any man
+"hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and
+shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love
+of God in him?" But, on the other side, if he sees him spiritually
+famishing--dying for want of the bread of life--how dwelleth the love
+of Christ in him, if he does not minister to this spiritual
+destitution? I know that real Christianity cares for body and soul.
+Bless God, it does; but, always mind that it sets the soul FIRST. I
+know the Master fed the multitude; but, before that, He had them with
+Him three days, trying to save their souls, and when they got hungry
+in the process, then He made them sit down, and fed their bodies. He
+always looked after the soul first, and so does everyone possessed of
+Divine Charity.
+
+Why? Because Divine Charity has opened his eyes. He realizes the
+value of souls. He sees them famishing. He sees them being damned,
+and he cannot help himself. His desire to save them rushes out of him
+like a torrent; he beholds them, and has compassion on them. Try your
+Charity by this mark: Do you contemplate the dying, famishing, half-
+damned souls of your fellow-men? Do you look abroad on the state of
+the world, and the state of the church? Do you think about it? Do you
+go into your closet, and spread it before the Lord, as Hezekiah and
+Jeremiah and Hosea did? Do you look at it, and turn it over, and weep
+over it, and pray and cry, as Daniel and Paul did? Try yourselves, my
+brethren, my sisters, by this mark.
+
+Divine Charity is always revolving round that great problem of
+infinite love. "What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole
+world, and lose his own soul?" Oh, I can never get it out of my ears
+or away from my heart! Oh, how I see the emptiness and vanity of
+everything compared with the salvation of the soul! What does it
+matter, if a man dies in the work-house--if he dies on a door-step,
+covered with wounds, like Lazarus--what does it matter, if his soul
+is saved? It is your creed as much as mine, that the soul is
+immortal, and that the death of the body is only its introduction, if
+it be saved, to a glorious future of everlasting felicity, progress,
+and holiness. Does the child remember how he used to cry over his
+lessons, when he becomes a man? Does he remember all the little
+difficulties of his school days, when he is inheriting the fruits of
+them? Just so; ten thousand times less important will be all our
+sufferings, trials, and griefs here, if we save our souls, and the
+souls of others.
+
+This Divine Charity makes everything else subservient to the
+salvation of souls; it uses everything else to save and bless the
+inner and spiritual man. Do you remember, on one occasion, when the
+Master had fed the multitudes, and when they came to Him again to be
+fed, He said, "Ye seek Me, not because ye saw the miracles, but
+because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled." You would have
+said, "Quite right; the people want to be fed; they are hungry." But
+do you hear the Divine lament that comes out in these words, that
+they were so spiritually obtuse, that they valued the earthly bread
+more than the heavenly! Give them as much temporal bread as you like,
+but mind you give them the spiritual bread first, for this is
+characteristic of true Charity.
+
+Have you got this Charity? Every soul knows whether it has or not.
+People are so unphilosophical in religion; they talk about not
+knowing; but you can find out in two minutes whether you love God or
+yourself best. Tell me that woman does not know whether she loves her
+husband or herself best! Nonsense! What is the proof?--she seeks to
+please him, and is willing to sacrifice herself for him--in fact,
+merges her interests altogether in his. Do you love God best? Are you
+willing to forego your interests, and to seek His? Have you this
+Divine Charity, born of Heaven, tending to Heaven? If not, my friend,
+resolve you will have it now. Begin to cry mightily to God, for the
+Holy Spirit to shed it abroad in your heart; give up your quibblings
+and reasonings, and go down at the foot of the cross and ask Him,--
+"Come, Lord, and break up this poor, wicked heart of mine, and shed
+this beautiful, pure, Divine Charity abroad in it," and then you will
+not, henceforth, seek your own, but the things that are Jesus Christ's.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CHARITY AND REBUKE.
+
+
+  And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest
+  of these is charity.--1 COR. xiii. 13.
+
+The second main point of difference between a true and a false
+Charity, we want to remark, is, _Divine Charity is not only
+consistent with, but it very often necessitates, reproof and rebuke
+by its possessor_. It renders it incumbent on those who possess it
+to reprove and rebuke whatever is evil--whatever does not tend to
+the highest interests of its object.
+
+This Charity conforms in this, as in everything else, to its Divine
+model--"As many as I love I rebuke and chasten"--when necessary for
+the good of its object, for He doth not _willingly_ afflict or
+grieve the children of men, any more than a father willingly
+chastises a disobedient child; but, if he be a wise father, he will
+do it because he loves it. Just so the possessor of this Divine
+Charity can afford to rebuke and reprove sin wherever he finds it. He
+will not suffer sin upon his neighbor, but will in any wise reprove
+him, and strive to win him to the right. We will just turn to a
+beautiful illustration (there are many, if we had time to go into
+them) of the working of this Divine Charity in the heart and life of
+the very apostle who wrote this 13th of Corinthians. We cannot get
+wrong, because it is Paul himself. (Gal. ii. 11-15.)
+
+"But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face,
+because he was to be blamed. For before that certain came from James,
+he did eat with the Gentiles; but when they were come, he withdrew
+and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.
+And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that
+Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. But when I
+saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the
+Gospel, I said unto Peter before _them_ all"--
+
+Well done, Paul,--noble, gloriously courageous Charity that! He did
+not go and mutter behind Peter's back and stab him in the dark--
+
+"I said unto Peter _before them all_, If thou, being a Jew, livest after
+the manner of the Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou
+the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? We _who are_ Jews by nature, and
+not sinners of the Gentiles."
+
+You want a characteristic of true Charity. Now, listen to it. It
+would be exceedingly painful to Paul thus publicly to rebuke Peter.
+They loved one another, for we find Peter, long after this, in one of
+his Epistles, calling Paul "our beloved brother, Paul." They loved
+one another. Paul understood the claims of true Charity, for he wrote
+this thirteenth of Corinthians. If he loved Peter, and if he
+understood the claims of true Charity, why did he thus openly rebuke
+Peter, why did he inflict upon himself the pain of doing it?
+Faithfulness to Peter himself, faithfulness to the truth,
+faithfulness to Jesus Christ demanded it; therefore, he sacrificed
+his own personal feelings, and inflicted this pain upon himself,
+rather than allow Peter to go wrong, the Romans to be misled, and the
+Jews to be carried away with worldly policy. Paul set himself to
+rebuke Peter in the presence of all, for truth lay, as it very often
+does, with the minority; nearly all the influence was on the side of
+the circumcision. _They_ were the most influential of the
+brethren, and Paul set himself against all this influence in his
+rebuke of Peter. Why? Because faithfulness to the truth demanded it,
+and Divine Charity is FIRST PURE.
+
+There is a greater example still in our Lord Himself, in the Master
+whose whole soul was love, whose life was one sacrifice for the good
+of His creatures; and yet how faithfully He reproved His own when
+they erred from the truth, and how fearlessly He exposed and
+denounced the shallowness and hypocrisy of those who professed to
+love God, and yet contradicted this profession in their lives. How
+fearlessly He reproved sin everywhere. He said to his disciples on
+one occasion, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the
+Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." As
+if He had said, you ought to have learned this before now.
+
+On another occasion, He said, "Are ye also yet without
+understanding?" And again, "Get thee behind me, Satan, for thou
+savourest not the things that be of God;" that was Divine Charity,
+that was faithful love, that dared to rebuke, rather than let the
+object of it do wrong, and sin against God. And again, when He goes
+to the hypocrites and Pharisees, He says, "Ye say ye are the children
+of Abraham"--(it was as difficult for Jesus Christ to confute the
+professors of His day, as it is for His ambassadors to confute the
+professors of this day, who are living inconsistently with their
+professions)--He said, "Ye say that ye are the children of Abraham;
+if ye were the children of Abraham, ye would listen to me; or, if ye
+were the children of God, ye would believe in me, for I came out from
+God. No! ye are the children of your father, the devil, and his works
+ye do." And yet His Divine heart was full, to breaking, of love, and
+broke itself on the cross for them, and prayed, "Father, forgive
+them; for they know not what they do." Oh, that your Charity and mine
+might not lack this lineament of the Divine likeness! Would to God
+there were more of this faithful, loving Charity, that dares to
+reprove sin, and to rebuke its brother, instead of the false Charity
+that fawns on a man to his face, and goes behind him and stabs him in
+the back.
+
+Do you suppose that the great mass of the professors of this
+generation think one another to be right? Take almost any given
+church. Do you suppose that the great mass of the members of that
+church suppose in their hearts that their fellow members, brothers
+and sisters in church communion, are living consistently--I don't
+mean in _things_ only, but in heart--that they are living really
+godly lives? Alas! witness what they say behind each other's backs.
+They believe no such thing; they know perfectly well it is not so,
+and they take care to tell other people so; and yet there is not one
+in a thousand of them ever went privately to his brother, and took
+lovingly hold of his hand, and reproved him for his sinful and
+backsliding conduct.
+
+What would be thought of any woman who were to go, after being to
+church the day before, and ask for a private interview with Mrs. ---,
+and, when alone with her, with tears in her eyes, and deep
+earnestness in her voice, were to say, "Dear Mrs. ---, I have come to
+see you on a very painful errand, but will you suffer a word of
+exhortation from one so unworthy and weak as I feel myself to be, and
+yet, I trust, one who has the Spirit of God, which urges me to come
+to you? Will you allow me to say that I was much pained with your
+attitude at church, yesterday. It seemed to me that your mind was not
+at all occupied with the solemnity of the service, but seemed to be
+occupied in criticising the person's dress in the seat opposite to
+you, and I could not help noticing that when you got outside the
+doors you began to laugh and talk in a way quite incompatible with
+the service you had been attending?" If she were to say, "Dear Mrs. ---,
+I have not mentioned this to a soul, not even to my husband, but I
+have come to tell it to you; let us go down before the Lord and ask
+Him for the Holy Spirit, that He may show you how wrong you are, and
+how you are sliding away from the love of God"--what would be the
+thought, what would be said, of such conduct?
+
+If everybody who sees sin upon his neighbor would do that--if he
+would take the Lord's counsel and go and see his brother alone, and
+tell him his fault--how many would be saved from backsliding, and how
+many a disgraceful split and controversy in churches might be saved!
+
+But where are the people who will do it? I don't mean there are not
+any--God forbid--I know there are; but I am speaking comparatively.
+Where is the man who will inflict pain upon himself?--for that is the
+point. If it were a pleasant duty, he would do it easily enough; but
+it is a painful duty, he does not like to screw himself up to it.
+Where is the man that will do it, rather than suffer his brother to
+go to sleep in his sin, and rather than the precious cause of Christ
+shall be disgraced and injured? Where are the saints who will go in
+meekness and in love to try to reclaim the one who has erred? I hope
+you know a great many. I am sorry to say I know only a few. If you
+know many, I am very glad, and the more you know the better I am
+pleased. If you are one of these, that is one, at all events. If
+every Christian would have this sort of Charity, what a change would
+soon come about. That is what the church wants--people who can afford
+to rebuke and reprove, because they don't care what men think of THEM
+--who are set only on pleasing their Lord and Master, and doing His
+will.
+
+Have you got this Charity that seeketh not her own? What a contrast
+between Saul and Paul. Did you ever think about it? What does he say?
+"I went about to establish my own righteousness." That was his
+inspiring motive; that was the spring of his action, before he got
+true Charity; not that he cared for the kingdom of God, but he cared
+for his own honor, glory, and exaltation, and wanted to stand well
+with his nation. Then contrast him when he becomes Paul. What does he
+say? "For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my
+brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh." _There_ is
+Charity, if you like. These were the very people with whom he had
+been so anxious to stand well, and whose good word he wanted; but,
+when the Holy Ghost had come, and Paul had got the Divine Charity,
+and got his eyes opened to see their devilish and lost condition, he
+so weeps over them that he says, "I have great heaviness and
+continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were
+accursed from Christ, for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the
+flesh."
+
+_There is a contrast_. He does not care now, what they think of
+HIM; he is going about, trying to open their eyes and make them see
+that they are not the children of Abraham, but the children of the
+devil, that they are going to the bottomless pit, and that, unless
+they turn round and seek the God of their fathers, they must perish.
+Self is lost sight of altogether, now; Paul's heart and soul and
+efforts are set on the salvation of men. If they choose to; praise
+him, he takes it as a matter of course; if they choose to condemn
+him, he takes that as a matter of course, too. He is seeking the
+kingdom, and, however men treat him, the kingdom he seeks, right on
+to martyrdom. He runs the gauntlet of their direst hate and malice,
+that he may open their eyes and turn them from Satan to God, and from
+sin to righteousness. Self is lost sight of; it is not Paul now--it
+is Christ and His kingdom.
+
+False Charity is the opposite of this. Its possessor is most
+concerned about what people think of HIM; not how they treat his
+professed Lord. The possessor of false Charity cannot afford to
+reprove anybody. Oh, dear, no! he would faint at the very idea; and
+he calls people hard and legal and censorious who dare to do it--
+poor, sneaking coward! but he will not be afraid to stab a man behind
+his back. The speech of this false Charity betrayeth it, it
+flattereth with its lips; honey is on its tongue, but the poison of
+asps is underneath; beware of it! Even when it professes to commend a
+brother, or neighbor, it rolls up its sanctimonious eyes, and always
+puts a "but" in--one of the devil's "buts." "Oh, he is a good man,
+but--." "Yes, I have a great esteem for him, only there is such and
+such a thing." Oh, it is very Divine. The devil can put on a garb of
+light when it answers his purpose. Oh, the fair reputations that this
+slime of the serpent has trailed over! Oh, the influence for good
+that this venom of the devil has poisoned and ruined, for it has
+been, truly said, "There is no virtue so white that back-wounding
+calumny will not strike"--even in God's perfect man, those who are
+watching and seeking to betray can find something on which to ground
+their accusations.
+
+I say, mind which Charity you have got True Charity, rejoiceth not
+in iniquity. Are you conscious in your soul of a feeling of triumph
+when anybody that you don't like happens to fall on some evil thing?
+If you have, look out--the devil has got hold of you. Do you rejoice
+in iniquity when it happens to an enemy? If so, woe be to you, unless
+you get that venom out. God won't have it in Heaven. _One man with
+that venom in him would damn Paradise_, "Love your enemies"--love
+them; "bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and
+pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye
+may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven." Now, my
+brother, my sister, try yourself. "We shall meet again, and you will
+find that these are no imaginary vagaries that I have been talking
+of; they are realities--though these great realities of our Christianity
+are seldom preached in these days; but they are _here_, and there is no
+truth in you if you have not got the Charity which hates evil as evil,
+and which will reprove it, and root it out, and have it _cured_!"
+
+Here, again, false Charity is the very antipodes of the Divine. It
+does not care much about righteousness. Quietness is its beau ideal
+of all that is lovely and excellent. It says, "Let us be quiet; you
+must not disturb the peace of the church." It cries, "Peace, peace!"
+when there is no peace. It says, "We cannot help these evils. Every
+man must look after himself; we are not responsible for our
+neighbor." It knows very often that there are continents of dirt
+underneath--"things," and "systems," and men--which it chooses to
+patronize; but then, it is covered up, and so it says, "Let it alone;
+we cannot have a smudge. Let it alone. Peace! Peace! Never mind
+righteousness--the church must be supported, if the money does come
+out of the dried-up vitals of drunkards and harlots; never mind, we
+must have it. Never mind if our songs are mixed with the shrieks of
+widows and orphans, of the dying and damned! Sing away, sing away,
+and drown their voices. Never mind; we cannot have it looked into,
+and rooted out, and pulled up. Peace; we must have peace!" And they
+call you, as Ahab did Elijah, the disturber of Israel, if you dare to
+touch the sore place and exhibit their putrifying wounds and bruises;
+and when you say to them, "The law of life is, 'Do unto others as you
+would they should do unto you,'" they impudently turn upon you and
+say, "But we are not expected to be perfect in this life," and so
+they throw a thicker covering over the filth, and on it goes.
+
+This is the devil's Charity; and the more the better for his
+purpose. But the Charity and the wisdom which is from above, is first
+pure, and then peaceable! I would rather be in everlasting warfare in
+company with that which is fair, and true, and good, than I would
+walk in harmony with that which is hollow, and rotten, and vile, and
+destined for the bottomless pit. The Lord help you to make the same
+choice!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CHARITY AND CONFLICT.
+
+
+  And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest
+  of these is charity.--1 COR. xiii. 13.
+
+Another characteristic of this Divine Charity is, that it OFTEN
+INVOLVES CONFLICT.
+
+It was so with our Lord. He was the very personification of it. He
+was love itself, and grace and truth poured from His lips
+incessantly. His blessed feet went about doing good, and His hands
+ministering to the necessities and happiness of His creatures, yet
+His whole course through this degenerate world was one of conflict,
+opposition, and persecution. His proper mission was to bring peace on
+earth; but the result of it was a sword! Why? That was not His fault.
+He would, doubtless, have enjoyed being at peace with all men, as His
+ambassador exhorts us--"as much as lieth in us to be." More, He was
+the Prince of Peace! Then, how was it that wherever He went, there
+was sword, opposition, and conflict to the death? Because men
+_resisted_ and _rejected_ His Divine and Heavenly ministrations. They
+would not hear His rebukes and His teaching, because they condemned
+them. They would not listen to His voice, because they were of their
+father the devil, and the works of their father they would do; and,
+therefore, they went about to persecute Him, and to kill Him.
+
+This was the reason--not that _He_ wanted it to be so, but it
+was the consequence of their resistance to the beautiful, heavenly,
+and Divine truths which He taught; and it is just so now, with the
+same truth, and the living embodiments of such truth. JESUS CHRIST
+COME IN THE FLESH AGAIN IN HIS PEOPLE, living out before the world
+His principles, acting upon His precepts, living for the same objects
+for which He lived, will produce, exactly and everywhere, the same
+result. It must be so while men are divided into two classes--the
+righteous and the wicked--those who are born of the flesh, and those
+who are born of the Spirit. One must either give in, or there must be
+perpetual conflict and warfare. It was so with the Saviour, and so,
+perhaps, with some of us.
+
+I think this is often a snare to God's really sincere people. I
+think some of God's people are afraid; they don't like the feeling
+that their hand is against every man, and every man's hand against
+them, or nearly so. They do not like the feeling of isolation; they
+do not like being compelled to take a course which nearly all the
+Christian professors round about them condemn, and make out to be
+uncharitable, and they often examine themselves to see whether it is
+possible that they may be going wrong in following the Divine Spirit.
+They say with Jeremiah, and with the Jeremiahs of every age, "Woe is
+me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of
+contention to the whole earth!" They are as "speckled birds, against
+whom all the birds round about are gathered." They feel this
+opposition and conflict deeply, but what are they to do? Very often,
+in following the leadings of the Divine Spirit, it is impossible for
+us to avoid such consequences. We have to march through troops of
+opposing forces. We have to become the subjects of almost universal
+suspicion. But what then? Must we give in? Must we decline to tread
+in the bloodstained footsteps of the Captain of our salvation? Must
+we decline the honor of being in the advance guard of the Lamb's army
+because of the conflict, because of the pain, because of the
+persecution? Nay, nay; let us hold on, those here, who are thus led
+by the Divine Spirit into paths which involve conflict with
+everybody. Follow on, brother! follow on, sister!
+
+There is no point on which those who want to come out thoroughly for
+God, suffer more than oh this. They continually say, "You see, my
+friends"--they are Christian, friends--"my friends object." People
+come, to see me, or they write that the Spirit of God has been urging
+them into a certain course, for months or years, and they are held
+back by the opinions and wishes, perhaps, of parents, or of brothers
+and sisters, or uncles, or aunts, or Christian friends.
+
+_I believe it will be found, in the great day of account, that
+there have been more blessed enterprises crushed, more leadings of
+the Holy Ghost disobeyed, more urgings of the Spirit quenched,
+through the influence of what are called Christian friends, than all
+other influences put together. "Suffer me first to go and bury my
+father," is an everlasting standing excuse for those whom, the Lord
+calls on in advance paths of Christian service! Oh, my friends, I am
+sure of it. Look out, you fathers and mothers, you brothers and
+sisters, and aunts!_
+
+Do not misunderstand me. Carefully weigh, probe, and examine, before
+God, your impressions and desires. Go into your closet, spread them
+there before the Lord. Lay them out, examine your own heart. Be sure
+there is no self-interest, no vain glory, no desire to be great, or
+to do some out-of-the-way thing. Be as clear as you like; be
+satisfied, in your own mind, that it is God's call, and then let
+fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, husbands, or wives complain--but
+go forward, my brother, and God will justify you. If, twenty years
+ago, I had stopped for Christian friends to sanction and to open the
+door, I should have waited till today, and the number of souls God,
+in His infinite mercy, has given me, I should not have gathered. But
+I did not wait for anybody's sanction to my Lord and Master's call;
+but said, "Lord, if I die in attempting it, I will do it." He seldom
+lets people die in attempting His will. He stands by them, and gives
+them abundant fruit.
+
+A lady said to me the other day, "You know my father is a Christian,
+and I am so afraid of going opposite to him." "Yes," I said, "that is
+quite a right feeling; I respect that feeling in you." But she was a
+woman of considerably matured age, and I added, "But is your father
+awake to the interests of God's kingdom as he ought to be?" She
+replied, "I dare not say he is." "I suppose," I said "he is
+comparatively old--a sort of dried-up Christian, who has lost the
+vigor and enterprise of his youthful days, when he wanted to go out
+and make everybody Christian?" "Yes," she said, "he has gone sadly
+behind in his zeal for the kingdom of Jesus Christ." "Now," I said,
+"God holds you responsible, just as He holds any other being. _He
+has not two codes-one for men and one for women._ There will be no
+two judgment seats, whatever men do here. God will hold you
+responsible for obedience to the teaching of His Spirit, and the
+leading of His providence, as much as your brother. What shall you
+say? You will be in the position of the man who said, 'Suffer me
+first to go and bury my father.'" She said, "I am afraid I shall."
+
+Now, I say, let us settle this, you Protestant Christians here.
+Because Catholicism has abused this principle, that a man is to leave
+his father and mother, and houses and lands, if needs be, is that any
+reason that we Protestants are to give it up? And has it come to
+this, that a man has only to follow Christ when everybody approves it
+--cries "Amen"--and when his own interests appear to him to be
+secured by so doing? Then, if it were so, I would give up religion
+altogether, and go and enjoy myself. I said to a lady, "When you
+married yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ, you put yourself in the
+same position as you would to an earthly husband." What woman in the
+world would feel that she ought to obey father and mother, rather
+than her husband? Ridiculous! Much less is she to obey her father, if
+her father's wishes are exactly contrary to the Divine teaching. She
+is only to obey IN THE LORD, and yet thousands of fathers and mothers
+are preventing their children working for God. Oh! what will you say
+to God when your precious children stand at His bar, without the
+sheaves they might have gathered, and the souls they might have won?
+What will you say to Him? And why do you hold them back? Oh, the
+mean, paltry considerations that you would be ashamed to own before
+this congregation! Is it for fear of suffering? Not in many
+instances; but, even if it were, did you bargain with Jesus Christ
+when you gave yourself and children to Him, that they were not to
+suffer for Him? Is it because of your pride?--because you want for
+them this world's applause and favor? Look out! God has wonderful
+ways of chastising His people in those very things in which they sell
+His interest. But you say that "everybody will be against you!" Yes,
+very likely. Let us settle that at once. Count all things dung and
+dross. Let none of these things move you. You say, "It will be a life
+of conflict to the end." Very likely, so was His. "I am so weak," you
+say. He knows all about that. You say, "It will be so cutting to have
+people saying this, and saying the other." I know it is cutting, but
+that is the path He calls you to tread, and He will give you grace to
+bear the cutting. "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and
+persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you, falsely,
+for my sake;" and, "If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy
+are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you."
+
+He does not show where He is leading us, so we can only go a step at
+a time. The future may look dark, but let us be fully persuaded in
+our own minds that the step in advance is the step the Lord wants us
+to take--then take it, and leave the future with Him. Come out, as
+Abraham did, not knowing whither you go; and, as sure as He sits upon
+the throne, He will vindicate your course, and, perhaps, the very
+things that you sacrifice, or that you think you sacrifice, for Him,
+He will give you, as the reward of your faithfulness.
+
+Oh, have I not known many such instances. I have known daughters who
+have been turned out of their father's houses for following the
+leadings of the Spirit of God, and who have endured all sorts of
+persecution, and trial, and suffering, and those fathers, when they
+were dying, would have nobody else to pray with them but that
+individual daughter. The way to win the souls of parents is by a
+consistent, steadfast, holy consecration to the Lord Jesus; whereas,
+if you pander, and trim, and hesitate, you will miss the reward. Do
+you think people do not know when we are inconsistent? Oh, yes, they
+know quite well, and they say, "That is not the right sort of
+religion;" but you be consistent and thorough, and God will honor
+these very means to the winning of the souls about whom you are so
+concerned.
+
+Further, a false Charity shrinks from opposition. It cannot bear
+persecution. Now, here is one unfailing characteristic of a false
+Charity: _it is always on the winning side_--that is, apparently, down
+here; not what will be, ultimately, the winning side. When Truth sits
+enthroned, with a crown on her head, this false Charity is most
+vociferous in her support and devotion; but when her garments trail in
+the dust, and her followers are few, feeble, and poor, then Jesus Christ
+may look after Himself. I sometimes think respecting this hue and cry
+about the glory of God and the sanctity of religion, I would like to see
+some of these saints put into the common hall with Jesus again, amongst
+a band of ribald, mocking, soldiers. I would like to see, then, their
+zeal for the glory of God, when it touched their own glory. They are
+wonderfully zealous when their glory and His glory go together; but,
+when the mob is at His heels, crying, "Away with Him!--crucify
+Him!--crucify Him!"--then He may look after His own glory, and they will
+take care of theirs.
+
+True Charity sticks to the LORD JESUS IN THE MUD, when He is
+fainting under His cross, as well as when the people are cutting down
+the boughs and crying "Hosanna!" I fear many people make the Lord
+Jesus Christ a stalking-horse on which to secure their ends. God
+grant us not to be of that number, for, if we are, He will topple us
+from the very gates of Heaven down to the nethermost hell. This false
+Charity cannot go to the dungeon--you never find it at the stake. It
+always manages to shift its sides, and change its face, before it
+goes as far as that. Never in disgrace; never with Jesus Christ in
+the minority, at Golgotha--on the cross. Always with Him when He is
+riding triumphant!
+
+Oh, I often think if times of persecution were to come again how
+many of us would be faithful? How many would go to the dungeon? How
+many would stand by the truth, with hooting, howling mobs at our
+heels, such as followed Him on the way to the cross--such as stood
+round His cross and spat upon Him, and cast lots for His vesture, and
+parted His garments among them, and wagged their heads and cried, "He
+saved others; Himself He cannot save"? How many of us would stick to
+Him then? But, as your soul and mine liveth, that is the only kind of
+love that will stand the test of the Judgment Day.
+
+Oh, have you got this Charity? Love in the darkness; Love in the
+Garden; Love in sorrow; Love in suffering; Love in isolation; Love in
+persecution; Love to the death!--Have we got this love? Examine
+yourselves, beloved, and see whether you are in the faith or not, for
+there is much need of it in this day, when there are so many false
+gospels and so much false doctrine;--when we hear so much about being
+"complete in Him" by people who never were in Him at all, and no more
+understand what it means than the very kitten that lies on their
+hearth. I say, examine yourself, whether you be in the faith or not,
+and whether you are in Him; for, verily, it is no easier now to be
+His real followers than ever it was.
+
+Further, a false Charity _refuses to call things by their proper
+names!_ Oh! what endless ways it has of putting lying! lying that
+is done on this day by professing Christians! Oh, the nice,
+comfortable, self-indulgent ways it has of looking at ungodly trades
+and practices! What do I mean? I mean trades that cannot be made
+subservient to the interest of the kingdom of Christ; trades that
+thrive by ministering either to the vile passions of human nature, or
+to the ungodliness of human nature. By what nice names it calls
+Satanic traffics in the bodies, hearts, and souls of men! And, when
+Divine Charity remonstrates with it, it turns round and says, "Well,
+you know, but we must have regard to our own interests; we have large
+interests at stake." I sometimes say, "God knows you have! and, when
+the Judge riseth up to avenge those who have been oppressed and
+destroyed by your iniquitous traffics, you will find them sadly TOO
+LARGE, TOO BIG FOR THE HELL ITSELF TO CONTAIN."
+
+The Lord have mercy on any of you who are living on the follies or
+wickedness of your fellow-men. Make haste to get out of such trades.
+Wash your hands of them, for, depend upon it, that is the devil's
+Charity that would try to make you comfortable in them! It has
+nothing to do with Divine Charity.
+
+"Oh, my soul, come not into their secret; unto their assembly, mine
+honor, be not thou united," but stand aloof from all such alliances
+of light with darkness, of truth with falsehood; "have no fellowship
+with the unfruitful works of darkness," "For behold the day cometh
+that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do
+wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them
+up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root
+nor branch." He is the same God; He changes not! Let us call things
+by their right names. Let us face the evil. Let us chase it out of
+the world--or, at any rate, chase it out of the church. Depend upon
+it, the Lord is going to prove all things. I can hear, as it were,
+the rumbling of the earthquake of the Divine indignation underground,
+I can see the gathering of the Divine wrath overhead; and, IF THIS
+NATION DOES NOT REPENT, AND IF THE CHURCHES OF THIS LAND DO NOT COME
+OUT AND WASH THEIR HANDS OF THESE THINGS, GOD WILL SEND US SUCH A
+BAPTISM OF BLOOD AS WE HAVE NEVER CONCEIVED OF, AND HE WILL PUT US
+OUT, and put some other nation in our place, or else He will act
+contrary to all His former dealings with nations! Do you suppose that
+Jerusalem was more guilty than we are? Have we not been exalted much
+higher than Jerusalem ever was? And have we not sinned against
+greater light and privilege than ever she did? Are not our professed
+Christians exactly the same in character as her Pharisees? Do they
+not make fine and long prayers, and, at the same time, devour the
+widow and fatherless? Yea, for hellish gain, do they not make widows
+and orphans wholesale? Might not God truly say of us, "Ah, sinful
+nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children
+that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked
+the Holy One of Israel unto anger: they are gone away backward." Even
+the prophets prophesy falsely, and the people love to have it so!
+
+Do you say, "No, we are not so _bad?"_ I answer, look abroad
+over the land, open your eyes, observe and see. Has it not become
+proverbial--have you not heard it until your ears have tingled, and
+your face burned with shame--"Better go and deal with anybody than a
+Christian"? and, alas! has there not been much ground for it? Have we
+any need to wonder that infidels wag their heads? Can you go into a
+shop where you are sure you will not be extortioned? Do you know
+anybody who keeps a conscience with respect to the profits he makes?
+Is there anybody scarcely who won't charge his neighbor more than the
+article is worth, if he has a chance, and call it lawful? _That_
+is extortion. It may be only asking twopence for an article worth a
+penny, or a 1,000  pounds for what 700 pounds should buy; it does not
+matter the amount--it is EXTORTION!
+
+God puts extortioners amongst the blackest of sinners. The Lord help
+me to "Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on
+the things of others," and have the Charity that will not take a mean
+advantage of my neighbor because I have the chance, and thus traduce
+the precious name of the Holy Jesus by calling myself one of His
+followers. It is time this satanic Charity was swept out! The very
+first law, the very vital principle of true Charity, is _righteousness._
+There is no Charity apart from righteousness. If your Charity is
+incompatible with righteousness, it is born of the devil and leads to
+hell!
+
+If you have had anything revealed to you, in your heart or life,
+that you see to be wrong, say, "Here Lord, pour the light in; I am so
+glad You have shown this thing to me while there is time to alter it.
+Now bring your dissecting knife, and cut it away, even if the roots
+go deep down into my very heart's core. I will have it out." Will
+you? Will you be made true, straight, clean? Will you be made Divine?
+Will you be filled with the pure, holy love of God towards God, and
+towards men, and all beings? That is what the Lord wants you to have.
+This is what He has sent His Son to do. No subterfuge; no make-believe
+work to get you into Heaven as you are; but He wants to make
+you as He wants you to be, and _He can do it._ The Great
+Physician is able, He is willing, He has got love enough, and power
+enough and grace enough to do it for you. Confide all your heart to
+Him. Will you have this Divine Charity wrought in you? It will make
+you willing to suffer, to endure hardness, and shame, and contempt,
+and persecution. It will make you willing to do anything that human
+nature can do, and endure anything that human nature can suffer, that
+you may accomplish the same purposes that He came to accomplish, that
+you may help onward the progress of His glorious kingdom.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+CHARITY AND LONELINESS.
+
+
+  And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest
+  of these is charity.-I COR. xiii. 13.
+
+_The possession of this Divine Charity often necessitates walking
+in a lonely path._
+
+Not merely in opposition and persecution, but _alone_ in it,
+and here, again, Jesus, who was the personification of Divine lore,
+stands out as our great example. He was emphatically alone, and of
+the people there was none with Him. Even the disciples whom He had
+drawn nearest to Him, and to whom He had tried to communicate most of
+His thought and spirit, were so behind that He often had to reprove
+them, and lament their obtuseness and want of sympathy. In the
+greatness of His love He had to go forward into the darkness of
+Gethsemane. He was alone while they slept, and then through ribaldry,
+scorn, and sarcasm, to the cross. Alas! alas! almost alone, except a
+few--to their everlasting honor--poor faithful women--_alone!_
+
+And, as it was with the Master, so it has been with all those whom
+God has called to go in advance of their race. It was so with John,
+and with Paul, and with most of the apostles, and with all those whom
+God has called to extraordinary paths since. Must John have a
+revelation of things shortly to come to pass? He must go alone into
+the Isle of Patmos! Must Paul hear unspeakable words, not, at that
+time, lawful for a man to utter? He must go alone into the third
+heaven, and not be allowed even to communicate what he saw and heard
+when he came down; alone, he must necessarily go in advance.
+
+And just so, when God has called some of His followers to an out-of-
+the-way path, they have had to go alone in an untrodden way. Superior
+love necessitates a lonely walk. You shrink, and say, "That seems so
+hard." Yes, I know; I wish I could make it easier, but I cannot help
+it. I simply state the fact, that superior love necessitates, in some
+measure, a lonely walk, because you see it is only they who--thus
+love, to whom the Lord tells His secrets. If you want to ask a
+confidential question and get a confidential answer, you must be on
+the bosom of your Master. You won't be able to do it at a distance.
+Then, you see, when He gives to any soul superior light to its
+fellows, and that soul _follows_ the light, it necessarily entails a
+path in advance of its fellows. Unless he can inspire and encourage them
+(which, alas! is hard work) to follow, he must go on alone.
+
+That was a beautiful illustration we read in the lesson (Acts x.).
+Here is Peter called to go in advance of the whole Church! Now, the
+Lord wants a man to do this, and whom does He choose? He chooses
+impulsive, energetic, head-first Peter. But then, there is something
+to be done first God lets down the sheet with all its unclean contents,
+and Peter fastens his eyes upon it. (I wish you had studied all the
+sheets the Lord has let down before _your eyes_, you would have come out
+very differently to what you have.) Peter studies them, and soon the
+Divine vision has absorbed Peter's attention. When the Lord has fairly
+got his attention, then comes the voice, "Now, Peter, rise, slay and
+eat." Then, when the Lord had taught him his lesson effectually, and
+when Peter saw that he had not yet explored all the ideas of the Divine
+mind about the extension of His kingdom, and that his business was to
+follow his Lord's directions, and not to have his own "ifs" and "buts,"
+but go ahead and do as God bade him, then Peter goes on to carry out the
+Divine direction. Then the church, aghast, as usual, at anything new--
+always down upon a measure, whether good or bad, if it has the _awful
+quality of being new_--was down upon it. This new church, which had only
+just itself been brought to God by a set of _new measures_, is down
+upon Peter, and they call him to the council to answer for his conduct.
+
+He tells them all about it in the truthful simplicity of a man of
+God, and, thank God, they bad sense enough--yes, and love enough,
+charity enough, to accept his explanations, and to glorify God. Would
+to God we could get as much sense and charity in these days!
+
+A lady writes to me, only the other day, of her husband, saying that
+he sympathises with outside work, but contends that there is
+everything one wants in the church; and another contends that there
+is everything everybody wants somewhere else, and so they are down
+upon all the Peters that dare to do anything out of the jog-trot
+line. You may reason ever so urgently, and show them that all these
+old measures are not enough for everybody, that there is a great mass
+of outlying population which they do not reach--the Gentiles of this
+generation; you may show them that these Gentiles are without the
+Holy Ghost, that they are not cleansed, that they are yet common and
+unclean; you may show them that these new measures of yours are quite
+as lawful as their old measures, and that, probably, they would be a
+great deal more useful, and, moreover, that they have been borne in
+upon you by the Holy Ghost, and that you feel as if there were a fire
+in your bones urging you to go and try them, but they will not hold
+their peace and glorify God, but will loose their tongues and villify
+you.
+
+False Charity looks more at the means than at the end. Its possessor
+is more concerned about what men will think of _him_, than what
+will exalt the Redeemer. You can know it by this mark. Are you more
+concerned about what your neighbor, Mr. So-and-So, or your minister,
+Rev. Mr. So-and-So, or even your bishop, thinks about you, than you
+are about the extension of the kingdom of Christ? Look out, my
+friend, yours is the wrong sort of Charity. True Charity looks at the
+end--the spread of righteousness in the earth--_the reign of the
+King_--and it is not very fastidious about the measures, so that
+they are lawful.
+
+I do not advocate anything unlawful, to do good--God forbid. Divine
+Charity says, "Anywhere with Jesus"--in the temple or outside of it--
+at the seaside or in Cheapside--on the mountain top or in the market
+place--in the streets--anywhere, Lord Jesus, if Thou wilt only come
+and take Thine inheritance and reign over the hearts and souls of
+men. True Charity is only too glad to become a Jew to the Jews, as
+weak to the weak, if it can only pick them up;--only too glad to
+descend to men of low estate, and put its arms round their necks, if
+it can only bring them to the cross and bring them back to the heart
+and Heaven of God; and it does not care what the Pharisee on the
+other side says; it is set on saving the poor sinner; it is pouring
+in oil and wine, and putting him on its own beast; _it is intent on
+saving him_, and does not care what anybody thinks. Have you got
+it? It is so good. It makes you feel so warm and comfortable inside.
+It is beautiful, and it proves better and better every day, and it
+will be better still when you are dying--Faith and Hope will be done
+away, but this love will last _forever!_
+
+But this necessitates somebody leading the way--going on in advance.
+Will _you_ be content to go in advance? Will _you_ endure the hardness
+of a pioneer? Can you bear the ridicule and gibes of your fellow-men?
+Dare _you_ go where the Holy Ghost leads, and leave Him to look _after
+the consequences?_ If so, happy are you, and you shall have a harvest of
+precious souls; you shall shine as the stars forever; but, if you draw
+back, His soul shall have no pleasure in you. Step out on to the Divine
+love, that is able, alone amongst the breakers, to bear your little
+bark--able to make you _more_ than a conqueror. Oh, step out--follow,
+follow, follow--do not be afraid!
+
+_Spurious Charity_ is the opposite of this. It must have human
+notice. Ostentation is its very essence. Cease to notice it, and it
+will soon die. "I went about to establish mine own righteousness,"
+says Paul, before he got the true Charity. Here was a grand
+opportunity for Pharisaic Saul. These Nazarenes, were they not
+everywhere spoken against? Was not this a grand opportunity for
+_him_ to be everywhere spoken for?--and so he takes advantage of
+public opinion, and becomes "exceedingly mad" against them; and, not
+satisfied with persecuting them in his own city, he goes after them
+into strange cities, but he reveals, afterwards, when he got the
+Divine Charity, that the mainspring of his zeal was SELF-GLORY.
+
+False Charity hates to be in a minority--you never find it in an
+unrespectable minority,--it wants company, and that of a respectable,
+genteel kind. Its possessors are always sticklers for the traditions
+of the elders; their horizon is bounded very largely by the opinions
+of men and the attitude of the _rulers_. They are always asking,
+"Have any of the rulers believed on Him?"
+
+Now, my friends, let this teach you wisdom and love. Prove all
+things before you condemn. I have no doubt Saul was an honest man, in
+the world's acceptation of the term, for he says he persecuted the
+Nazarenes ignorantly, thinking he was doing God service; but what a
+grand mistake he was making, and how effectually he was doing the
+_work of the devil!_ Of course, if he had _seen_, he was mistaken, he
+would have ceased to _be mistaken_.
+
+I wish people would stop and think that the path they are now
+standing in the well-beaten track on which they are now walking with
+such slow dignity--was one quite as new and unconventional and
+outrageous to the coadjutors of their forefathers, as the path which
+any new departure by the Holy Ghost may set before them _now_. I
+wish such people would read history. I suppose they do not, or, if
+they do, they read it as they do the Bible--they fail to draw any
+practical principle from it. Such people should read "Neale's History
+of the Puritans," and see in what a hurricane of excitement,
+opposition, contempt, and persecution, their forefathers fought for
+the very paths they are now _standing still in_, and holding so
+sacred that they cannot have them disturbed. Do you see how
+unphilosophically they are acting? If their forefathers had acted on
+the principles they are acting on, they would have stood still in old
+paths, and we would never have been in the new ones. These people
+stand in these paths of traditionalism and routinism, just where
+their forefathers left them, occupying all their time in admiring the
+wisdom and benevolence and devotion of their forefathers, instead of
+imitating _their aggressive faith_ and MARCHING ON TO THE CONQUEST OF
+THE WORLD.
+
+Which is the most God-honoring? Which has the most common sense in
+it? Which will please your, forefathers the most? But it is now as it
+was in the days of the Son of Man--for, "ye build the tombs of the
+prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, 'If
+we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been
+partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.' Wherefore ye be
+witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which
+killed the prophets."
+
+Alas! what a deal of this is going on to-day, only there is one
+difference--it is going on "under a Christian creed, instead of a
+Jewish." It is only the _creed_ that differs--the character, the
+spring of action, is the same.
+
+Now, my friends, try yourselves--which Charity _have you got?_
+Do you rejoice in the extension of the kingdom of Jesus Christ by any
+lawful means, or are you more concerned _about the color of a man's
+coat than the state of his heart?_ Would you rather the poor
+drunkard were left to rot and seethe in his misery, than that a man
+should put on a blue jacket with an S.[Footnote: Badge of the
+Salvation Army.] on his collar, and go and fetch him out? Would you
+rather have men damned conventionally, than saved unconventionally?
+If you would, you are a Pharisee at heart--I care not what you call
+yourselves. Go home and read for your instruction Matt, xxiii. 23-28.
+
+Further, how bitterly this false Charity often comes out in
+individual cases. We will just take an illustration. We will suppose
+here is a family of decent, respectable, professedly Christian
+people, who have been to church or chapel most of their lives. Or
+here is a Church, we will suppose, of the same character--nothing
+particular has happened; they fear the Lord, and go comfortably
+along, and are just where they were ten or fifteen years ago, making
+up for _deaths_ and _removals_. We will suppose that a member of that
+family or that church, as the case may be, gets converted. He reads a
+book, goes to a special meeting, or some providential utterance is the
+means of sending the light of God's Spirit upon his soul, and he is
+quickened and woke up to see the miserable, half-dead, guilty condition
+in which he is; he is praying and groaning, and feeling after God; he
+gets the sense of his transgressions and unfaithfulness being taken
+away, and the joy of God's salvation restored to his soul. Now, in a
+moment, almost immediately, as in the case of Peter, as soon as the
+internal work is done, comes the external path opened up. The Spirit of
+God lays before him some new work, something strikes him which has been
+long forgotten, or which never seems to have been recognised in his
+family or church. He sees what a grand thing that would be for the
+conversion of souls, and the extension of the kingdom of Jesus
+Christ, and he feels it beginning to burn like a fire in his bones to
+enter this path of usefulness. He prays much over it, and he waits
+until he is fully satisfied that it is not a vain impulse, but that
+it is of the Spirit of God. Full of love, and faith, and zeal, he
+goes to tell his minister, or some Christian friend; he expects that
+they will sympathise with his feelings, and enter into his project;
+but, alas! alas! they begin by raising objections--they start
+difficulties:--"Well, but you see that would be a little out of our
+order: that is not exactly our way of doing things. I am afraid the
+deacons would object, or I am afraid something would happen;" and if
+he has the misfortune to be young (anybody would think it was a sin
+to be young), they will "crush" him out; they put the extinguisher
+on, and say, "Wait, my brother, until you have more experience," or,
+"my sister," especially, "_you_ must never presume to do
+anything of which we cannot approve!"
+
+Oh! friends, you smile because you _know_ how true it is! Oh,
+alas! the thousands of urgings of the Holy Ghost; the thousands of
+heavenly voices that have been as clear to human souls as ever
+Peter's sheet was to him; the thousands of glorious aspirations and
+schemes for the spread of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ that
+have been thus crushed by this spurious, false, selfish, devilish
+Charity! The Lord put it out.
+
+Oh! I would not care what the Lord called my child to do that would
+be for the extension of His kingdom and the glory of His name; I
+would not restrain her or keep her back. I might say, "My child, it
+may be a painful thing for me to consent. I might have chosen another
+path for you; but if you are satisfied the Spirit leads you, go
+forward, and I will do all I can to help you." Why? Because I want
+the King to have His own, and I do not care how it is, so that He gets
+His own, and I will have Him to use _mine_ as well as me to get it.
+
+Fathers and mothers, look out! If you grudge your children to God,
+He will be even with you. "They that honor Me, I will honor, but they
+who do not, shall be lightly esteemed." They shall get light weight
+all round, and be whipped with their own rods. Mind how you withhold
+that which is most precious from God! Mind you do not receive the
+grace of God in vain; _some people do_.
+
+The fifth point in which this Divine and spurious Charity contradict
+each other, is, that Divine Charity--the pure love of God--is _law
+abiding_.
+
+That is, it always manifests itself in harmony with the great moral
+law of the universe--it never does evil that good may come! You never
+hear it saying--"I cannot say that this is exactly square; I know
+this is not exactly the right course, but then I can accomplish such
+and such objects by adopting it." Never! that is of the devil! You
+may always know that the law of righteousness is entwined round the
+very heart of Divine Charity, and as justice and judgment are the
+habitation of the throne of its Divine Author, so righteousness is in
+the very core of its soul. It will never sacrifice righteousness for
+peace, or anything else.
+
+Now, what is the whole duty of man? To love mercy, to do justly, and
+walk humbly with God; and, when the Holy Spirit has brought about
+that result in your soul, God will look on you with a beneficent eye,
+with a smile of approbation, and its genial influence will sun your
+whole being, and you will walk in the light of it, even as the angels
+do in Heaven. "Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God;"
+that is the whole duty of man--everything is included in that.
+
+Do you hear it, oh! ye temporizers with Divine law? Do you hear it,
+ye who say that we must come down partly, and be a little like the
+world in order to win it? that you must come on to the level of the
+ungodly in order that you may win them to God?--I tell you that
+_all unrighteousness is sin!_ Do you hear this, you who contend
+for covering up by a false Charity certain sins which are sending men
+to perdition wholesale, and make laws and acts of parliament to
+protect men in these crimes? I know your specious arguments that come
+from the devil; but I ask, is it justice to take one part of the human
+race, and that the weaker, and, therefore, according to the law of
+Divine Charity, demanding the greater protection from cruelty and wrong,
+and offer that part up for the _supposed_ good of the other, because
+the latter is stronger? Is that justice? Is that mercy? and, mind, I say
+emphatically _supposed good_; for, do you think one part of God's
+creation can be trodden down without reacting with terrible moral force
+upon the other? Do you think it can? Was it ever done? Will it ever be
+done? _No! not while He sits on His throne_. Yes, _supposed_ good, for
+facts mock your arguments. It is not for their good; you know it is not.
+You cannot accomplish your purpose when you have done all; and think you
+that you will escape, by your satanic inventions, the Divine
+Executioner? Think you that your specious arguments will avail with Him
+who hath sworn in His holy habitation that He will avenge the oppressed
+and down-trodden of the earth? No, no! I see written between the lines,
+and I hear muttering between your speeches. "Be not deceived; God is not
+mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." You
+cannot escape the penalty!
+
+The last characteristic of true Charity which I shall name is, that
+_it holds out_, in spite of ingratitude, opposition, and persecution!
+Its possessor seeks the good of all men, not because he ought, merely,
+but because he cannot help it. His _heart_ is on the side of God and
+truth. He _loves_ righteousness, and, therefore, cannot desist from
+seeking to bring all beings to love it, too, although they hate and
+despise him for so doing. Jesus held out in this glorious love, even in
+the agonies of crucifixion. "Father, forgive them; they know not what
+they do." His heart was set on bringing man back to God, and He went
+through with it. His soul did not draw back, and His Divine love
+constrained Him, even onto death.
+
+Paul followed his Master in this respect; and though the more he
+loved some of his converts, the less he was loved, he went on,
+seeking their highest good, not being hindered for a moment by their
+ingratitude. He loved _them_--not their good opinion or applause! A
+spurious Charity soon tires when the objects of it prove unworthy. Its
+possessor says: "I have had enough of this; the kinder I am, the worse
+people treat me. I shall button up my pocket, and take my ease, till I
+am better appreciated." _Self_-glory is the very life of spurious
+Charity: it dies right out under ingratitude and contempt.
+
+Which have you got, my brother?--my sister?
+
+Does somebody say, as a man who had been to a service at Scarborough
+the other, day, and had been hearing some straight truth, said, when
+asked, "How did you like it?" The man, a young, prosperous tradesman
+in the town, shuffled about, and said: "Well, it was awful; if that
+is true, I am on my way to hell." Thank God he had found it out. Now,
+have you got this Divine Charity? I told you, at the beginning, it
+did not grow on unregenerate human nature, so if you are an
+unregenerate man, and have not the Holy Spirit, I want you to find it
+out. You have to begin at the beginning, and get the plant planted.
+No matter what spurious imitations you have got, if you have not got
+_the love of God_. Have you got it, brother?--sister? If you
+have not, you can have it this afternoon. Will you seek it? We were
+all once without it, even as it is said, "We were the children of
+wrath, even as others;" we hated those who hated us; we hated things,
+not because they were wicked, and against God, but because they were
+opposed to us personally; our love and hate were influenced by
+selfishness, the same as others, but now the Lord has renewed our
+hearts, and made us in some little measure, like Him who "loved
+righteousness, and hated iniquity; and, therefore, God anointed Him
+with the oil of gladness above His fellows." Oh! yes; the more you
+love righteousness and hate iniquity, the more of gladness you will
+have, and the more glorious the testimony you will give for God. You
+will be able to say, with David, "I have not hid Thy righteousness
+within my heart; I have declared Thy faithfulness and Thy salvation:
+I have not concealed Thy loving kindness and Thy truth from the great
+congregation." There will be no difficulty about declaring it. We
+find it easy to declare it when people get it. We cannot keep them
+quiet; they are like the early converts--they are up two or three
+together; and, like Paul, we have to say, "One at a time; you shall
+all prophecy, if you do it one at a time." When people get it, it
+bubbles up, and runs over; "it springs up," as out great Master said,
+"as a well of water, unto everlasting life." Many floods cannot
+quench it; it abideth forever.
+
+Have you got it? Have you got enough of it to lift you above your
+petty, selfish interests, or are you guided by the Charity that first
+looks inside to see how any proposition will affect _self_,
+instead of seeing how it will affect the kingdom of God? And you,
+poor sinner, who know you have not got it--I have more hope of you
+than some who profess to have it. His great bowels of compassion move
+towards you; He is waiting to shed abroad this love in your heart.
+The feast is spread; all things are now ready. Oh! come into His
+banqueting house, and sit under His banner of love for ever and ever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CONDITIONS OF EFFECTUAL PRAYER.
+
+
+  If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what you
+  will, and it shall be done unto you.--JOHN xv. 7.
+
+  Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye
+  pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.--MARK
+  xi. 24.
+
+  If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all
+  men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let
+  him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a
+  wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that
+  man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.--JAMES i.5-7.
+
+  Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not
+  what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh
+  intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And He
+  that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit,
+  because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will
+  of God.--ROMANS viii. 26,27.
+
+I have not taken the texts in the order in which they stand, but in
+the order in which they logically follow one another, and in which
+they elucidate the subject.
+
+And now, in the few remarks I wish to make, I shall try to embody
+answers to the letters I have received on this subject. There is no
+experience, perhaps, more common in these days than this, nothing
+more constantly said to me by professing Christians: "Well, I have
+prayed a long time for certain things, but I don't seem to get any
+answers to my prayers." I often wonder such people don't give up
+praying altogether I think I should if I never got answers.
+
+Now I say, this is a very God-dishonoring experience, and there must
+be something wrong somewhere when this is the case. There must be
+something wrong either with the suppliants or the Giver. Oh! I feel
+often what a deeply God-dishonoring thing it is when Christians meet,
+as they frequently do, up and down the country, to pray for a
+revival, to pray for a specific thing in their Churches and in their
+families, and it never comes.
+
+Some years ago, when the wave of revival was sweeping over Ireland
+and America, you know the Churches in this country held united prayer-
+meetings to pray that it might come to England; but it did not come,
+and the infidels wagged their heads, and wrote in their newspapers:
+"See, the Christians' God is either deaf or gone a-hunting, for they
+have had prayer-meetings all over the land for a revival, and it has
+not come." Oh! how my cheeks burned with shame as I thought of it;
+how I mourned over it! I knew it was not because our God was asleep
+--not because His arm was shortened--not because His bowels of
+compassion did not yearn over sinners--not because he could not have
+poured out His Spirit and have given us the same glorious times of
+refreshing they had in other places. _That was not the reason_.
+There was only one reason, and that was, that His people asked amiss.
+
+They did not understand the conditions of prevailing prayer. They
+did not fulfil them. If they had prayed till now, and maintained the
+same attitude, they would not have got the answer, because there are
+conditions to these promises, as to all other promises; and we may
+pray ourselves black and blue in the face if we do not comply with
+the conditions. God will never move an inch to meet us, and never
+fulfil the promises in our experience. May you, who are awake to
+perceive your responsibilities and obligations in respect to the
+perishing world, take heed to my words, and take home what I
+say--think about it, pray over it, try to realize it is the Lord's
+message to you. These are only a tithe of the glorious promises with
+respect to prayer. There are plenty of them in the Book, in which God
+has bound Himself to answer the faithful prayers of His people.
+
+"The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much."
+
+Now, why is it that the great mass of professing Christians do not
+get answers to their prayers? In the first place, they are not the
+CHARACTERS to whom God has made the promises. These promises are made
+to God's saints--to those who keep His commandments, who walk in the
+light and have fellowship with Him through the Holy Spirit, and,
+therefore, the Spirit can make intercession for them. How can the
+Spirit make intercession for a man when He is not in him? Those who
+are walking in the light can see what sort of requests to put up,
+when to put them up, and how to put them up; they see it all, because
+they are _in the light_. Such people do ask, and receive. But,
+alas! it is because there are so few of these that God's character is
+traduced every day, and that infidels laugh at us and at our God, too.
+
+Now, do not go round about, and try to put this off you. Who are
+these promises made to? I challenge anybody to find me promises in
+this Book, taken with the context (except in the case of repenting
+sinners, who are a special class, and met with special promises),
+except to saints. There are no promises of answer to prayer, except
+to this class of character. These promises are not made to everybody,
+are they? The prayer of the wicked is an abomination to God, except
+it be his prayer when he is forsaking his wickedness. Then that
+prayer is not an abomination; but all other prayers of the wicked
+are. These promises are made to righteous people--to people who are:
+
+First, _in fellowship with God_. "If ye abide in Me, and My
+words abide in you;"--having been brought into living fellowship by a
+living faith, the promises are made to those people who MAINTAIN that
+union--who walk in it, who live in it, and who avail themselves of
+the opportunities and privileges which Jesus has bestowed upon them
+by virtue of that union.
+
+Now, you see, friends, it is not enough that you were _once_ in
+union with Jesus, in order to get answers to your prayers. I am
+afraid there are thousands in a backslidden state. They have let go
+the grasp of faith; they are not abiding in Christ; they are abiding
+_out of Him_, and yet they are constantly praying and wondering
+why God does not answer their prayers. Don't you see, the first
+condition is wanting. There is no possible way of approach to the
+Father but through the Son. All prayers are an abomination to God
+which do not go up to Him through His Son, and in His Son, except
+such as those of Cornelius, who never heard of Christ; but to people
+who have ever had the light and known His Son, no prayers while out
+of living union with His Son are accepted. And that does not mean
+saying, "For the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ." It does not matter
+much what people _say_. God never pays any attention to people's
+words; it is what they mean and feel that He pays attention to; and
+He knows when people really offer their prayers in union with His
+Son. They are not in union, and, therefore, their prayers never rise
+any higher than the room in which they offer them. They hardly get
+out of their mouths; God never hears them. They are drowned and
+buried in their own throats.
+
+Oh! you young converts, never drop out of living union with Jesus.
+Keep in it--hold it fast--walk in it, and you will get answers to
+your prayers every day. You will be as sure of it as if you saw God
+doing what you ask, and heard Him speaking to you. You will be able
+to say, "I know that Thou hearest me always." Bless His name! Those
+who abide in Him can say that in their measure.
+
+The next condition of prevailing prayer, is--_obedience to the
+light_. Now, what does it mean to walk in obedience? Well, it does
+_not_ mean, searching this New Testament to find out how little
+of God's grace will get you into Heaven! It does not mean, running
+round to see what this person says and the other person says about
+such and such a text, in order that you may escape from the real,
+practical meaning of the text! Such people are hypocrites at heart,
+whoever they are; or at least, insincere. They don't want to know
+God's will; they would much rather not know it. They want to get away
+from the plain, practical, common-sense meaning of the text, and then
+they say, "It doesn't mean exactly what it says," and "It should be
+interpreted so-and-so;" and they stroke themselves down, and try to
+make themselves feel comfortable when they are traitors at heart.
+_That is not walking in the light_.
+
+Walking in the light is like walking in the sun--not running behind
+a pillar there, and a tree yonder, to get away from the light. It is
+coming right out, and saying, "Now, Lord Jesus; I want to know Thy
+will. Lord, pour Thy light upon me. I am prepared to follow it, even
+though it is to the block and to the stake."
+
+First, desire to have the light. Oh! it makes my heart ache--I was
+going to say boil--with righteous indignation, in jealousy for God's
+honor, to think that He should be so traduced and blasphemed by those
+who profess to love Him--who try to make out that they get wrong for
+want of light. Nothing of the kind. Here is plenty of light; but you
+must say, "Yes, Lord, I am willing to have it, even if it condemns
+me. If it condemns my heart, my head, Lord, pour it on me. If it
+condemns my life, pour it on me. If it condemns those companions,
+those indulgences, pour it on me: I will give them up. If it condemns
+my business, pour it on me: I will abandon such business, and sooner
+die in the workhouse than continue in it. If it condemns my family
+relations, I will come out from them, and follow Thee." The Lord will
+always answer such a soul as that. He will put His finger down on
+this sore spot and the other, and He will tell you what to do, and
+you will be as sure of it as if you heard His audible voice. What
+does it mean to walk in the light? Obey His voice. Don't stop to
+confer with flesh and blood, but, as Paul did, get up, and set off to
+commence the career which your Master commands. Paul did not stop to
+confer with flesh and blood. He did not stop to reckon what it would
+cost him, but on he went, and never stops, until he reaches the
+block. _That_ is walking in the light--obeying--not standing,
+quibbling with the Lord about it; not saying, "Oh! but,"--but
+_doing_ it.
+
+Oh! friends, no matter who preaches another Gospel to you; no matter
+who comes with the doctrine that you can be accepted of God--be a
+saint on any other conditions. For Christ's sake and your soul's
+sake, don't believe them. As the apostle John says: "If there come
+any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into
+_your_ house, neither bid him God speed." You say, "But then it
+is such a costly sacrifice." It is, in one sense; but when you have
+paid the price, when you have made the sacrifice, when you have
+entered upon the road, the joy, the light, the power, and the glory
+are worth a hundred times as much. Did any man that ever got the
+Pearl of great price feel that he had given too much for it, even if
+he had given all that he had? _Never!_ Martyrs and confessors
+have gloried in the possession of it while they have writhed on the
+rack and in the flames, and you never heard one solitary testimony
+that any man or woman of God ever thought that they had paid too
+highly for it. Never! Do you want to have your prayers answered? That
+is the way. Walk so that your own heart condemns you not. The
+obedient child that lives in complacent affection with its parent has
+no fear in coming up to ask for favors. It knows it will get them.
+Its own heart does not condemn it. "If our own heart condemn us not,
+_then_ have we confidence toward God." I defy any man to
+separate confidence and obedience. If you will not be obedient, you
+cannot have confidence. I challenge any Christian here to tell me
+that he can go up to the throne of God in faith for any blessing,
+when his own heart condemns him. He knows he cannot. HE HAS FIRST TO
+GET THAT STATE OF CONDEMNATION TAKEN AWAY before he can exercise
+faith for any blessing. Walk in the light, and then you shall have
+fellowship with Him, and His blood will cleanse you from all sin, and
+the Spirit will teach you how to pray, and what to pray for, which
+the great mass of professors know nothing about.
+
+Further, the _leading, teaching, and urging of the Holy Ghost_
+is the next condition of effectual prayer. We might call these
+conditions a four-linked chain, connecting our souls with the very
+heart of God. First, fellowship with Jesus; second, obedience to His
+commands, walking in the light; third, the intercession of the
+indwelling Spirit; and fourth, the exercise of faith; and if you miss
+any one of these links, your prayers are done for. You may have all
+the other three, but if you miss one, you will not get answers. It
+will cut communion, and there will be no response.
+
+I am afraid a good many professors do not know what the Spirit of
+intercession means. They do not know anything about the Spirit making
+intercession for them with groanings that cannot be uttered. When we
+get more of this Spirit of intercessory prayer in parents, we shall
+see more spiritual children born. Now, the Holy Spirit says, here we
+know not what to pray for as we ought, unless the Spirit teaches;
+hence people are constantly, as James says, asking and not receiving,
+because they ask amiss. "Ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon
+your lusts"--that means, your earthly desires, affections, purposes,
+bound by the horizon of earth.
+
+Now, I believe that this is the great reason why thousands of
+Christians pray and never, get answers. They ARE SELFISH IN THEIR
+PRAYERS; they are earthy; they ask amiss, that they may consume it
+upon their earthly desires, affections, and propensities. Mothers
+tell me that they have prayed for their children for years, and not
+got one of them converted. I say, "More the pity; more the shame on
+you." Why? Because they prayed merely selfish, instinctive prayers,
+because they were _their_ children, or because they wanted them
+to be religions, so that they would not go into sin, or bring
+disgrace or misery upon the family, or it would be so nice to have
+them religious; but they don't want them to be righteous over much;
+they don't want them to be so given up to God as to cut off the
+vanities and fooleries of this world, and to give themselves up
+wholly to Christ--that is too much; but just religion enough to make
+them a comfort to themselves. Would _you_ answer such prayers
+_if you were God?_ Hundreds and thousands of prayers are put up
+every day that go no deeper and no higher than that, if the motives
+were analyzed--and the Holy Ghost _does analyze_. I am afraid
+many wives pray for their husbands on the same tack. They are not
+troubled that their husbands are living in disobedience to God,
+squandering their time, talents, and money, and robbing the kingdom
+of Jesus Christ of what they might be doing for it;--the agonizing
+consideration is, that, if religious, they would spend so much more
+time at home; that they are wasting the money, instead of laying it
+up for the children; and that, if they were religious, all this would
+be right. Now, I say, God will never answer that wife's prayer for
+her husband! You must think of what your husband could be for God--
+what he could do for God's kingdom--how Jesus Christ has shed His
+blood for him--how dishonoring a life of sin is to God; and you must
+dwell on this until your heart is ready to break, and you will soon
+get your husband converted, if you act wisely along with your
+prayers. God hates selfishness--selfishness is the devil, the very
+embodiment of him. You must get out of self; you must look at your
+child always as God's, as having a precious soul redeemed with the
+precious blood of Jesus, and having talents and capacities to
+_glorify Him_ and spread His kingdom; and you must ground your
+prayers on that, and say, "I would rather lay them in the grave, a
+thousand times--rather they were poor and despised--than they should
+grow up to _dishonor Thee_." Then you will get your prayers answered!
+
+People pray about their business. God sees that the way to destroy
+that man is to let him get on. He does not want money in order to
+roll the old chariot along. God sees that prosperity would eat his
+soul like a canker, and so He won't let him get on. The Spirit of God
+never leads the soul to a selfish prayer. No; it leads the soul to
+weep because men keep not His law, to cry more about His interests
+than its own. It is willing for its own house to lie desolate, if
+that will promote the spread of God's kingdom. It is willing for the
+sparrow to find a nest on its own altar, if by that it can replenish
+and glorify the altar of Jehovah.
+
+Then comes the last link--_faith_. Here is another secret. No
+believer can exercise faith for anything that the Holy Ghost does not
+lead him up to. You may pray, and pray, but you will never exercise
+faith until you have the Spirit making intercession in you. There is
+very little difficulty about believing with people who have taken the
+three preceding steps. Those who are in fellowship with Jesus, those
+who are walking in the light, those who have the Holy Ghost as an
+interceding Spirit--they know what to pray for; they know what the
+mind of the Spirit is; they know how the Spirit is leading them, and
+they can march up to the throne and "ask and receive." They know
+their request is according to the mind of God, and they can wrestle,
+if need be, like the Syrophenician woman, if He sees fit to try their
+faith. He does not always answer at once. He lets them wrestle with
+groans that cannot be uttered; but they know the Spirit is making
+intercession for them, and they hold on sometimes amidst great
+discouragement and temptation till the answer comes. They get the
+assurance of faith, which says, "Yes, it shall be done." People look
+at them with wonder. Christian friends know the thing they are
+praying for has not come, and say, "You look as glad as if yon had
+it;" "I have got the earnest: I know it is coming: I have the
+assurance that it shall be done." Now, every praying parent ought to
+wrestle till that is got for every child. You never ought to leave
+off till then, and then train as well as pray--co-work with God: that
+is the law of the kingdom, all the way through. Believe that ye
+receive it, and ye _shall_ have it. Oh! the confusion, the
+jumbling there is, in dealing with poor souls at that point. People
+say, "Believe you are saved, and you are saved." I have heard
+Christians give that advice to souls many a time. "Believe you are
+saved, and you are saved." Believe a lie, and it will come true. Is
+that God's philosophy? What is the use of telling a person to believe
+he is saved _before_ he is saved? That is telling him to believe
+a lie. People say, "Believe you are sanctified, and you are
+sanctified." Indeed! When were you sanctified? God never tells a
+person to believe a thing until it happens. He has made the
+bestowment of the gift to be simultaneous with the exercise of the
+faith. Believe that ye receive, and ye shall have--not that ye did
+receive an hour ago, for that would not be true; not that ye will
+receive an hour hence, for that would be presumption. There is no
+such promise, but believe that ye do now receive, and ye shall have.
+"I will never disappoint the man who dares trust me to that extent."
+He shall have it. You say the age of miracles is past. Yes, because
+the age of that sort of faith is past. You will get miracles back
+when that sort of faith returns. God has bound Himself over to the
+faith of His real people, and He would sooner break all the laws of
+nature, than He would break the laws of grace. He can easily set
+aside a law of nature; but He will never set aside a law of grace. He
+has bound Himself to faith--the only power in the universe to which
+He has bound Himself--and nobody ever rose up in this world yet, and
+said, "I trusted God, and He deceived me." Faith means TRUST--faith
+means ABANDONMENT--as if you were dying, and you had nothing left but
+the naked promise of God. You say, "I am dying: I must trust now,"
+and that man jumps on to the promise. He gives up experimenting, and
+really trusts; and you have seen the light come into his eyes; you
+have heard the song of praise burst from his lips, because he
+believed he received, and he did receive.
+
+Now, then, some of you who have written to me, know you are living
+in fellowship with Jesus. Some of you have lately commenced to walk
+in the light. You have cut off and put away the idols; you have
+abandoned yourself to the will of God, and sworn, by His grace, that
+you will follow Him all the way. You _do_ feel the Holy Ghost is
+in you. Oh! I entreat you to obey fully, to let the Spirit have His
+way. Do not restrain Him. Don't think it will hurt your bodies: don't
+think it is too much; don't think you are getting fanatical; don't
+think that, after all, God does not require this kind of thing--
+follow the Spirit. Let the Spirit lead you, and groan through you;
+let the Spirit wrestle with God through you--follow Him. If we had
+more of this in these services, we should have more fruit; and if the
+church had more of this, there would be more souls born into the
+kingdom.
+
+It was one of the things in which I grieved the Spirit of God in my
+early days that I would not let Him, to the extent He would have
+done, make me a woman of prayer; and yet, in comparison with many,
+perhaps, I was one. He used to lay particular people and subjects on
+my heart, so that I could not help praying; but oh! how bitterly I
+have regretted and wept before the Lord that I did not let Him have
+all His way with me in this respect. Take warning! and you whom He is
+beginning to lead, let Him lead you. Pour out your souls for others
+and with others. I believe that more souls are convinced in real
+prayer, than in speaking. I have noticed this many a time. I have
+seen at the bottom of a great hall or theatre, or in the gallery, a
+lot of the roughest men conceivable, behaving in the most unseemly
+manner, arrested by the influence of prayer. Perhaps, when the
+rowdyism has been ready to break into open tumult, a little woman has
+stretched out her hands over the congregation, and said, "Now, let us
+pray;" and I have seen the whole mass of men assume an attitude of
+quietness and reverence. I have watched the aspect of the
+congregation, and seen great, rough, black-faced fellows get their
+heads down, and sometimes wipe their eyes; and when we have got up to
+sing, there has been no more disorderly conduct, but they have
+settled down with the solemnity of death, to listen. Hundreds of them
+were convinced of sin while under that prayer. It was the Holy Ghost
+wrestling for those souls in the heart of that woman, that struck
+them with conviction.
+
+Prayer is agony of soul--wrestling of the Spirit. You know how men
+and women deal with one another when they are in desperate
+earnestness for something to be done. That is prayer, whether it be
+to man or God; and when you get your heart influenced, and melted,
+and wrought up, and burdened by the Holy Ghost for souls, you will
+have power, and you will never pray but somebody will be
+convinced,--some poor soul's dark eyes will be opened, and spiritual
+life will commence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE PERFECT HEART.
+
+
+  For the eyes of the Lord ran to and fro throughout the whole earth,
+  to shew Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect
+  toward Him--2 CHRON. xvi. 9.
+
+This passage occurs in the history of Asa, one of the most godly and
+devoted kings that ever sat upon the throne of Judah. We are told in
+the fourteenth chapter that he commenced his reign by setting himself
+to destroy the idolatry into which the whole nation had been betrayed
+by its former ruler, and to restore the worship and service of the
+God of Israel. He set himself to bring back the nation to its
+allegiance and obedience to God; and his success is a great
+encouragement to any who shall set themselves, single-handed and with
+a perfect heart, towards God, to do this in any circle, under any
+circumstances.
+
+_He succeeded_. God blessed him in his efforts to purge his kingdom
+inside, and God also delivered him from his enemies outside, and enabled
+him by His power to defeat the king of Ethiopia, who came against him
+with an exceeding great army, because King Asa was perfect in his heart
+towards God.
+
+When this king came up against him, Asa went and cried unto the
+Lord, and cast himself upon his God, trusting Him to deliver him, and
+God never disappointed any man, either before or since Asa's day, who
+did that. God delivered his enemies into his hand and made him a
+successful and happy king, over a prosperous and increasing people.
+
+But by-and-bye, after many years, for Asa was perfect in his heart
+towards the Lord for many years of his long reign; but whether it
+were, as, alas! too often happens, that a life of ease and prosperity
+brought forth in Asa the results of partial backsliding, we know not;
+but as years went on, another war was declared, and this time it was
+the king of Israel who came up against the king of Judah. What did
+Asa do? Did he go, as formerly, and cry unto the Lord, and put his
+battle into His hands? No, he did not. He had left His first love; he
+had become, in a measure, untrue to the Lord God of Israel. He forgot
+where his strength lay; his spiritual perceptions had become dim; he
+had lost his realization of God's ability to help and deliver him out
+of the hands of his enemies, and so he fell back upon worldly policy.
+He went down to Assyria and courted Ben-hadad, the king of Assyria,
+and said, "Come and help me, that my enemies may depart, for I am
+sore pressed." Ah! what a picture of backsliders. On another
+occasion, when Jehosophat made an ungodly alliance, a prophet met him
+and said, "Should'st thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate
+the Lord?" No man ever did this without being sorely whipped, as poor
+Asa was. He succeeded, indeed, in the battle, and won the victory. It
+was a lawful end, but he accomplished it by unlawful means. He won
+the victory, and, I dare say, he was congratulating himself, and
+stroking his beard in self-complacency, when, lo! the prophet comes
+to deliver God's message to him, and he says:--
+
+"Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on
+the Lord thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped
+out of thine hand.
+
+"Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubims a huge host, with very many
+chariots and horsemen? yet because thou didst rely on the Lord He
+delivered them into thine hand.
+
+"For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the earth, to
+show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect
+towards Him. Herein thou hast done foolishly; therefore from
+henceforth thou shalt have wars"--the very thing he went to Assyria
+to seek to avoid. He wanted _peace_, not war, and he went down
+to Assyria to enable him to spend the remainder of his days in peace,
+when, lo! the Word of God goes forth, "Thou shalt have wars." He
+was chastised in the very thing for which he sold himself and his
+God. "Be sure thy sin will find thee out." It is God's way to
+chastise His children by those very things in which they sell His
+interests. "Thou shalt have wars."
+
+But we want to deal specially with the lesson which the prophet
+draws from this event; for he says, "Wherefore didst thou go to
+Assyria? Wherefore hast thou sinned against God? Hast thou forgotten
+who the God of Israel was? Didst thou not know that the eyes of the
+Lord run throughout the whole earth?" He would have helped thee now,
+Asa, as much as in the past. He will help any man who is whole-
+hearted towards Him--that trusts in Him. Now, I say, this is the
+lesson which the prophet draws, not only for Asa, but for all the
+Asas since his day, and those who are yet to come, for every man and
+woman who professes to be a servant of God, the prophet sounds down
+to the ages that "the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the
+whole earth, to show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart
+is perfect towards Him."
+
+Now, what is this perfect heart? "Ah!" you say, "that is the point."
+Yes, that is the point, and we will try to show what kind of a heart
+this is. It must be A DIFFERENT KIND OF HEART TO HEARTS IN GENERAL;
+all hearts are not perfect towards God, or else His eyes would not
+have to be running to and fro throughout the earth to find them. They
+would be plentiful enough if they were the common sort of hearts, but
+evidently they are a different kind of hearts to ordinary hearts; and
+another thing is evident on the face of the text, that these kind of
+hearts are very precious in the sight of God. He delights in them; He
+makes greater store by one such than He does by thousands of the
+other kinds of hearts, of which there are so many. I say, these two
+lessons everybody with common sense will admit at once--that these
+hearts are not the common hearts, and that they are very precious in
+the sight of God.
+
+Now, what is the meaning of this term "perfect heart," referring to
+the hearts of God's children, all the way through the Bible? As you
+know, I like to establish my points in the mouths of two or three
+witnesses, I will give you two or three texts, that we may find out
+God's meaning of this term, and then we will give you the very lowest
+rendering, where all schools are agreed, for I don't want
+controversy. We will just look at Psalm xxxvii. 37: "Mark the perfect
+man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace." There
+_are_ such people as God means in that verse. Psalm lxiv. 4:
+"That they may shoot in secret at the perfect," who have always been
+a favorite target of the devil. He does not shoot much at people
+whose hearts are perfect towards the Lord. It is at those perfect
+people he shoots. "Suddenly do they shoot at him," perhaps while he
+is thinking they are his friends. "Suddenly they shoot, and fear not."
+
+"Be ye perfect," says the Saviour, "even as your Father which is in
+Heaven is perfect." That means something. We will try to find out
+what it does mean (Matt. xix. 21)--
+
+"Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou
+hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven:
+and come _and_ follow Me."
+
+And, again, at 1 Cor. ii. 6--
+
+"Howbeit, we speak wisdom among them that are perfect."
+
+And (2 Timothy iii. 17)--
+
+"That the man of God may he perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all
+good works."
+
+There are numbers of others, but these are samples, and I suppose
+all Christians attach _some_ meaning to these terms. They must
+be terms signifying a great difference between the persons who are
+spoken of and ordinary men and women. Now, what do they mean? Well,
+the very lowest rendering of all divines and all schools is this,
+that it means _sincerity_ and _thoroughness_. Well, that is all I want.
+Give me a man sincere and thorough in his love, and that is all I want;
+that will stretch through all the ramifications of his existence; it
+will go to the ends of his fingers and his toes, through his eyes, and
+through his tongue, to his wife, and to his family, to his shop, and to
+his business, and to his circle in the world. That is what I mean by
+_holiness_! Then, taking the lowest translation, it means that a man is
+whole-hearted in love, and thorough out-and-out in service! Amen. For
+that man who is thus perfect towards God, God will indeed show Himself
+strong in more ways than one!
+
+This cannot mean a merely natural heart, it must mean a renewed
+heart, because there are no perfect hearts by nature. There is no one
+in this sense that doeth good and sinneth not, for every child of
+Adam has gone astray like a lost sheep, has done the things he ought
+not, and left undone the things he ought to have done, and the whole
+world has become guilty before God. There are no naturally perfect
+hearts. It must mean, then, a heart renewed by the Holy Ghost, put
+right with God, and then kept right. A heart cannot be kept right
+until it has been _put right_, and that is the secret of the
+failure with some of you. You are trying to bring forth fruits before
+the tree is planted. You are looking for the fruits of a perfect
+heart before you have got one. You may well be disappointed. You must
+get your heart renewed, and then kept right by the power of the Holy
+Ghost.
+
+Then, what does this perfect heart imply?
+
+1. _A heart perfect in its loyalty to God_, thoroughly given over to
+God's side, irrespective of consequences,--_loyal_. These are the hearts
+that God wants. This was the difference between David and Saul. There
+was not so much difference in the greater part of Saul's outward life,
+when compared with the life of David. It was only the prophet Samuel,
+perhaps, who knew the difference, and a few close observers; but the
+difference was, that David was loyal to God, and God calls him, for this
+reason, a man after His own heart.
+
+From the first calling of David from the sheepfolds, right to the
+end, with one or two exceptions, during the whole of his life, he was
+loyal to God, and, if you will carefully search his history, you will
+find that in all his wars, and all his dealings with the nations
+round about, and with the leaders of affairs in his own kingdom--in
+everything,
+
+David was loyal to God. It was the interests of God's kingdom that
+lay at David's heart--not his own honor, ease, or aggrandizement--not
+his own fame or riches, or building himself a house--it was the house
+of his God that was dear to his heart. He was loyal; whereas Saul was
+loyal only as far as it served his own purposes and interests. Oh!
+how many such Sauls there are in these days. When God's commandments
+went counter with his notions, he openly set God at naught, and did
+as he liked. He sacrificed God's interests to his own. He was unloyal
+at heart, hence he was a traitor, and never could learn the way of
+the Lord. He was never perfect towards the Lord his God, and, at
+last, God cast him off, and Samuel did also, and you know what his
+end was. Just the difference between the two--loyal and unloyal.
+
+A heart perfect towards God! What does it mean? It means--
+
+2. Perfect in its _obedience_. That man or woman who has this
+kind of a heart, ceases to pick and choose amongst the commandments
+of God, which he shall obey, and which he shall not--he ceases to
+have his own will, though sometimes he may have a struggle with his
+own will, and the way that God may call him to take may look to him
+as if it were a dangerous or risky way, and he may wait a little bit,
+to be thoroughly satisfied; but when once satisfied that it is God's
+way, the true child will not hesitate. He confers not with flesh and
+blood, but on he goes, irrespective of consequences. This was Paul's
+kind of obedience. He conferred not with flesh and blood; he counted
+all things dung and dross, and he went on doing so to the end--thorough
+in his obedience.
+
+People come to us and want to know what they are to do; they feel
+that they are only half-hearted in God's service; they have neither
+joy nor power, and say, "What must I do?" and we take, as God helps
+us, the dissecting knife, and try to find out the difficulty. We get
+them down under the blaze of the Holy Spirit's light, and try to
+probe them and find where they are wrong. Perhaps the Lord leads us
+to the sore spot, and we point out the difficulty, but, instead of
+obeying, they shrink away. They look ahead, and they see that to obey
+the light will involve loss of some kind--perhaps reputation, wealth,
+family associations, ease, or loss of friends, loss of temporal
+comforts, loss of good business. Loss is in the background, and they
+see it. They know where we are leading them to, and they slip back;
+they do not want to see, and yet they do not want to consider
+themselves dishonest, so they turn their heads away, and will not
+look in the direction of the light, smoothing it all over and
+singing--
+
+  "Were the whole realm of nature mine,
+    That were an off'ring far too small," &c.
+
+That is not a perfect heart, but a partial heart towards the Lord God.
+
+The partial heart, so common, alas, now-a-days, wants to serve God a
+little. It is willing to go a little way with God, but not all the
+way; so that, taking the lowest interpretation, that is not a perfect
+heart towards the Lord. Can it be expected that the Lord should shew
+Himself strong in behalf of such people? Do you think you would if
+you were God?
+
+Suppose you were a king, and had a prince or statesman who was
+serving you very valiantly and devotedly while it served himself;
+but, suppose the tables were turned, and you were dethroned and cast
+away into exile, your name being bandied about the nation where you
+once reigned as king, in disgrace and dishonor; suppose this
+statesman gave you up, and said, "Oh! I am going to be on the side of
+the reigning monarch. I was very devoted to this man while he
+reigned, but I cannot afford to be devoted to him now his interests
+draggle in the dust; I must be on the winning side." What would you
+think of such a man? And if you were restored to your kingdom and
+power, would you show yourself strong on behalf of such a man? No;
+you would remember, as David did, the man who cursed you. But if you
+had a prince or statesman who followed you into exile, who ministered
+to you in secret, who tried to hold up your interests, who contended
+for your righteousness and justice, and held up your name and tried
+to make the people see that you were a good and true man, who held on
+to you, when all the nation was calling you traitor--if you came back
+to your throne, would you not show yourself strong in behalf of that
+man? Of course you would. The Lord says He will show Himself strong
+in behalf of those of such a heart towards Him.
+
+You masters here have a servant--a clever, smart man; you know how
+well he can serve you, and how valuable he can be, and would be if he
+were true; but you have reason to believe that he will only go with
+you as far as it will be for his own interests; he will serve you as
+far as he can serve himself, too, but, if he can get up by putting
+you down, you may lie there. What would you say to such a man? You
+would say, "I shall never show myself strong for him." So God is not
+likely to show Himself strong for people who are not of a perfect
+heart. A lady said to me, "I have been doing this and doing that for
+years, but I have no power; why don't I have it?" I said, "Because
+you are not true to God. He will give it to anybody who is true to
+Him, and He can see into your heart, and knows you are not." Why will
+He not show Himself strong in your behalf? _Because you do not show
+yourself thorough in His behalf._ The moment you show yourself
+thorough, that moment will He show Himself strong for you. If you had
+been in Daniel's place you would not have done as he did. Daniel was
+one of the perfect-hearted men; he served his God when he was in
+prosperity. He set his window open every day. Then his enemies
+persuaded the king to make a decree that no man should pray but to
+this king for so many days. "Now," they said, "we shall have him."
+But Daniel just did as he was wont, he went and prayed with his
+window open. You say, "That was demonstrative religion, that was
+courting opposition. What need was there for him to make this
+display; could he not have shut the window and gone into an inner
+room? That was just like you Salvation-Army people, you always make a
+demonstration. Why could he not have gone into an inner chamber and
+prayed?" Because he would be thorough for his God in adversity, in
+the face of his enemies, as he was in prosperity. So he went and
+prayed with open window to the God of Heaven, and because _He
+is_ the God of Heaven, He is able to take care of His own. His
+heart was perfect towards the Lord his God.
+
+3. _This perfect heart is perfect in its trust_:--and, perhaps,
+that ought to have come first, for it is the very root of all.
+
+Oh, how beautiful Abraham was in the eyes of God; how God gloried
+over him. How do I know that Abraham had a perfect heart towards God?
+Because he trusted Him. No other proof--no less proof--would have
+been of any use. I dare say he was compassed with infirmities, had
+many erroneous views, manward and earthward, but his heart was
+perfect towards God. Do you think God would have failed in His
+promise to Abraham? Abraham trusted Him almost to the blood of Isaac,
+and God showed Himself strong in his behalf, and delivered him, and
+made him the father of the faithful; crowned him with everlasting
+honor, so that his name, from generation to generation, has been a
+pillar of strength to the Lord's people, and a crown of glory to his
+God.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+HOW TO WORK FOR GOD WITH SUCCESS.
+
+
+  Son, go work to-day in my vineyard.--MATT. xxi. 28.
+
+  Compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.--LUKE xiv. 23.
+
+I am to speak of some needful qualifications for successful labor;
+and I say:--
+
+First, that there are certain laws which govern success in the
+kingdom of grace as well as in the kingdom of nature, and you must
+study these laws, and adapt yourself to them. It would be in vain for
+the husbandman to scatter his seed over the unbroken ground or on
+pre-occupied soil. You must plough and harrow and put your seed in
+carefully, and in proper proportion, and at the right time, and then
+you must water and weed and wait for the harvest. And just so in
+Divine things. Oh! we shall find out, by-and-by, that the laws of the
+spiritual kingdom are quite as certain and unerring in their
+operation as the laws of the natural kingdom, and, perhaps, a great
+deal more so; but, through the blindness and obtuseness and unbelief
+of our hearts, we could not, or would not find them out. People get
+up and fluster about, and expect to be able to work for God without
+any thought or care or trouble. For the learning of earthly
+professions they will give years of labor and thought, but in work
+for God they do not seem to think it worth while to take the trouble
+to think and ponder, to plan and experiment, to try means, to pray
+and wrestle with God for wisdom. Oh! no: they will not be at the
+_trouble_. Then they fail, grow discouraged, and give up.
+
+Now, my friends, this is not the way to begin work for God. Begin as
+soon as you like--begin at once--but begin in the right way. Begin by
+praying much for Him to show you how, and to equip you for the work,
+and begin in a humble, submissive, teachable spirit.
+
+Study the New Testament with special reference to this, and you will
+be surprised how every page of it will give you increased light. You
+will see that God holds you absolutely responsible for every iota of
+capacity and influence He has given you, that He expects you to
+improve every moment of your time, every faculty of your being, every
+particle of your influence, and every penny of your money _for Him_.
+When you once get _this_ light, it will be a marvelous guide in all the
+other particulars and ramifications of your life. Study your plans. How
+men in earthly warfare study plans of stratagem, and adopt all manner of
+measures in order that they may take the enemy by surprise! But, alas!
+how little care and attention God's people give to taking souls; and yet
+it is _far harder work to take souls than it is to take cities_.
+
+How surprised I have often been at the assumption of people who,
+perhaps, never gave one hour's consecutive thought in their lives to
+the best means of doing certain work, and yet they will pronounce an
+opinion right off as to certain modes and measures which have been
+tried and proved successful in the lives of some of the most
+successful laborers for God. They will say, "Oh! I don't believe in
+it." "Oh! it is all nonsense, ridiculous, wrong!" while, perhaps,
+those people whom they condemn have been pleading, and weeping, and
+studying, and experimenting, and almost sacrificing their heart's
+blood to try to find out the best means of winning souls for Christ.
+
+I shall never forget the shock that came over me once in a large
+gathering of Christian people, when a gentleman, who occupied a
+somewhat prominent position, was giving out a hymn which contained a
+verse something about spending one hour in watching with Jesus. He
+stopped in the middle of this hymn, and said words to this effect: "I
+am afraid we are verily guilty here. I do not know that I dare say I
+ever watched one consecutive hour with Jesus in my life." I shall
+never forget it. My cheeks burned with shame. I said, "Oh! my God, if
+these are the leaders, we need not wonder at the people." A man
+occupying such a position to dare to say it! The Lord have mercy on
+him. No wonder the Lord's work is done in such a bungling way! I say
+those who want to be successful in winning souls require to watch not
+only days but nights. They want much of the Holy Ghost, for it is
+true still, "This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and
+fasting." We have grown wiser than our Lord now-a-days; but, I tell
+you, it is the same old-fashioned way, and if you want to pour out
+living waters upon souls, either publicly or privately, you will have
+to drink largely at the fountain yourself, and have them very ready
+to let out! If you have not, your talk will be as sounding brass or
+tinkling cymbal. Oh! it makes my soul weep tears of blood to think of
+the misdirected effort that will be put forth this very Christian
+Sabbath. Plenty of labor, but how little comes of it?--all because it
+is cramped, and ruined, and misdirected, for want of thought, and
+prayer, and a single eye for the salvation of souls. May God rouse us
+up to this, and make us willing to think, and labor, and learn, and
+wrestle, and sacrifice, in order that we may do it.
+
+Then, further, the second qualification for successful labor is
+power to get the truth _home_ to the _heart_.
+
+Not to _deliver_ it! I wish the word had never been coined in connection
+with Christian work. "Deliver" it, indeed--_that_ is not in the Bible!
+No, no; not deliver it; but drive it home--send it in--make it _felt_.
+That is your work;--not merely to say it--not quietly and gently to put
+it before the people. Here is just the difference between a self-
+consuming, soul-burdened, Holy Ghost, successful ministry, and a
+careless, happy-go-lucky, easy sort of thing, that just rolls it out
+like a lesson, and goes home, holding itself in no way responsible for
+the consequences. Here is _all_ the difference, either in public or
+individual labor. God has made you responsible, not for delivering the
+truth, but for GETTING IT IN--getting it home, fixing it in the
+conscience as a red-hot iron, as a bolt, straight from His throne; and
+He has placed at your disposal the power to do it, and if you do not do
+it, _blood_ will be on your skirts! Oh! this genteel way of putting the
+truth! How God hates it! "If you please, dear friends, will you listen?
+If you please, will you be converted? Will you come to Jesus? or shall
+we read just this, that, and the other?"--no more like apostolic
+preaching than darkness is like light.
+
+God says, "GO AND DO IT: compel them to come in. That is your work.
+I have nothing to do with the measures by which you do it providing
+they are lawful."
+
+"Use just the same diligence, earnestness, and determination that
+you would if you were resolutely set on any human project, and always
+be sure that I will be with you to the end of the world. Never doubt
+My presence when you are set on My business. I will be with you, and
+I will succeed you." Do it--the Lord help us to get the truth home!
+
+This was the way with Paul, and this was the way with Jesus. Paul
+says: "Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men."
+Oh! what a beautiful insight this gives us into the ministry. Why do
+you persuade men, Paul? "Because I know the terror of the Lord that
+is coming on, and because we thus judge that, if One died for all,
+then were all dead. Therefore, I persuade men." He did not give up
+when he had put it before them. He carried them on his heart, and he
+says, "That by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every
+one night and day with tears." He wept it in, as well as drove it in,
+with his logic, and his eloquence, and with the power of the Holy
+Ghost in him. Make it go in--make your words felt; don't talk to them
+in that sickly, languid way that makes no impression--make them know
+it. If you have not enough of the Holy Ghost for this, go to your
+closet till you have, and then come and drive the Word home to their
+conscience as a two-edged sword, dividing asunder soul and spirit.
+
+The second thing indispensible to success is _simplicity_:--
+naturalness in putting the truth.
+
+You have not only to get it home, but, in order to do this, give it
+them simply and naturally. If I were asked to put into one word what
+I consider the greatest obstacle to the success of Divine Truth, even
+when uttered by sincere and real people, I should say, _stiffness_.
+It seems as if people, the moment they come to religion, assume a
+different tone, a different look, and manner--short, become unnatural.
+
+People sometimes come to me and say, "Oh! I would give the world to
+be natural, but I have got into this way of talking to people. It
+seems as though I cannot be natural. Can you help me?" I say, "Yes, I
+can help you, by this advice--Determine, by the help of God, that you
+will break the neck of this bondage. I will tell you how to begin.
+Begin with your family. Break off right in the middle of conversation
+on earthly matters, and begin to talk about their souls, or your own
+experience, or drop down on your knees, and begin to pray." "Oh! but
+it would be such a break." It should not be a break to talk to your
+Father. If you are in the spirit of it there will be no break. This
+will help you, more than anything else. Determine that you will
+overcome this sanctimoniousness, which is the curse of a great deal
+of the religion of this day. We want SANCTIFIED HUMANITY, not
+sanctimoniousness. You want to talk to your friends in the same way
+about religion, as you talk about earthly things. If a friend is in
+difficulties, and he comes to you, you do not begin talking in a
+circumlocutory manner about the general principles on which men can
+secure prosperity, and the sad mistakes of those who have not secured
+it; you come straight to the point, and, if you feel for him, you
+take him by the button-hole, or put your hand in his, and say, "My
+dear fellow, I am very sorry for you; is there any way in which I can
+help you?" If you have a friend afflicted with a fatal malady, and
+you see it, and he does not, you don't begin to descant on the power
+of disease and the way people may secure health, but you say, "My
+dear fellow, I am afraid this hacking cough is more serious than you
+think, and that flush on your cheek is a bad sign. I am afraid you
+are ill--let me counsel you to seek advice." That is the way people
+talk about earthly things. Now, do exactly so about spiritual things.
+If your friend is a spiritual bankrupt, tell him so. Tell him where
+he is going, and that the reckoning day is coming, and that he will
+be in God's prison-house very soon, and that, if the creditor once
+gets hold of him, and shuts him up, he will never get out till he has
+paid the uttermost farthing. If your friend has a spiritual disease,
+tell him so, and deal just as straight and earnestly with him as you
+would about his body. Tell him you are praying for him, and the very
+concern that he reads in your eyes, will wake him up, and he will
+begin to think it is time he was concerned about himself. Try to
+attain this simple, easy, natural way of appealing to people about
+their souls. I believe if all real Christians would attain this, and
+act upon it, this country would be shaken from end to end!
+
+Thirdly, you must be in _earnest--desperate_, I would like to say.
+
+And, indeed, friends, settle this as a truth, that you will never
+make any other soul realize the verities of eternal things, any
+further than you realize them yourself. You will beget in the soul of
+your hearer, exactly the degree of realization which the Spirit of
+God gives to you, and no more; therefore, if you are in a dreamy,
+cosy, half-asleep condition, you will only beget the same kind of
+realization in the souls who hear you. You must be wide awake, quick,
+alive, feeling deeply in sympathy with the truth you utter, or it
+will produce no result.
+
+Here is the reason why we have such a host of stillborn, sinewless,
+ricketty, powerless spiritual children. They are born of half-dead
+parents, a sort of sentimental religion, which does not take hold of
+the soul, which has no depth of earth, no grasp, no power in it, and
+the result is, a sickly crop of sentimental converts. Oh! the Lord give
+us a real robust, living, hardy Christianity, full of zeal and faith,
+which shall bring into the kingdom of God, lively, well-developed
+children, full of life and energy, instead of these poor, sentimental
+ghosts that are hopping around us. Oh! friends, we want this vivid
+realization ourselves. If we have it we shall beget it in others.
+Oh! get hold of God. Ask Him to baptize you with His Spirit "till
+the zeal of His house eats you up." This Spirit will burn His way
+through all obstacles of flesh and blood, of forms, proprieties,
+and respectabilities--of death, and rottenness of all descriptions!
+He will burn His way through, and produce living and telling results
+in the hearts of those to whom you speak. Earnestness--such
+earnestness that it comes to desperation--like that of Paul, who
+counted all things but dross; yea, and who counted not his life dear
+unto him. That was the secret. He counted not his life, nor anything
+that constitutes life--liberty, pleasure, enjoyment, friends,
+reputation, ease, &c.,--all on the altar, all was in the scale. He
+counted none of those dear unto him, so that he might win the
+perfection, the fulness of Christ in his own soul, and the salvation
+of the souls around him.
+
+Oh! what a LAUGHING-STOCK TO HELL is a light, frivolous, easy,
+lukewarm professor. Oh! what a shame and puzzle to the angels in
+Heaven, and what a supreme disgust to God. "I would thou wert cold or
+hot. So, then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I
+will spue thee out of My mouth." Oh! what will that be? Talk about
+shame! Think of that! Shame! Some of you feel it going into the
+streets for God. You feel it when a few people see you kneel down
+here! Think of being spewed out of the mouth of God before an
+assembled universe. What will that be? God helping me, I will avoid
+that I will sooner hang with Jesus on the cross, between two thieves,
+than I will bear that shame. "_I would thou wert cold or hot!_"
+
+Some of you say, in your letters, that you will have this whole-
+heartedness. You say that you have given up all, and that you are
+consecrating yourself to a life of labor. Now, be _hot_. I know
+you will burn the fingers of the Pharisees. Never mind that. I know
+you will fire their consciences, like Samson's foxes did the corn.
+Never mind that. _Be hot._ God likes hot saints. Be determined
+that you will be hot. They will call you a fool: they did Paul. They
+will call you a fanatic, and say, "This fellow is a troubler of
+Israel"; but you must reply, "It is not I, but ye and your father's
+house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord." Turn
+the charge upon them. Hot people are never a trouble to hot people.
+The hotter we are the nearer we get, and the more we love one
+another. It is the cold people that are troubled by the hot ones. The
+Lord help you to be HOT.
+
+Then another indispensable condition is the surrendering of _all
+our powers_.
+
+There must be no holding back. "Cursed be he that holdeth back his
+sword from blood." That curse is resting on Christendom to-day. Oh!
+they will thrust the sword a little way in, but they will not go in
+to the core. They dare not draw blood--the soldiers of this age--for
+their lives. They dare not touch a man to the quick, because, alas!
+they are looking to themselves, and thinking what people will say of
+THEM, instead of what God will say of them. You must not be afraid of
+blood if you are to be a true warrior of the Lord Jesus Christ. You
+must not be afraid to say, if need be, "Oh! generation of vipers, who
+hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? "You must not be
+afraid to say, if need be, "You have made my Father's house a den of
+thieves," if you save some of them by doing it.
+
+Oh! this accursed sycophancy; I was going to say, this accursed fear
+to brave the censure of the world--this accursed making good evil and
+evil good, as if God were altogether such an one as ourselves. Don't
+you think He sees through the vile sham? Oh! my friends, if we don't
+mend in this respect, He will come in judgment before long, and we
+shall find out then the difference between the precious and the vile,
+if we do not find out before. If you want to be a successful worker,
+you must make up your minds to begin with, that you will be CRUCIFIED.
+
+As a dear minister once said to somebody, when he was arguing with
+him about being so hard in the pulpit, "I don't care." "Oh!" said the
+other, "Don't you know what became of 'Don't care?'" "Yes," he said,
+"He was crucified, and I am ready to be crucified alongside of him."
+When you are in the right, don't care. You can but be crucified, and
+it will soon be over; and then the Book says, "They that suffer with
+Him will also reign with Him, and they shall be glorified together."
+It would be a wonderful thing to be glorified alone, but, oh, think
+of being glorified together!
+
+A gentleman said lately, "I have been thinking a great deal about
+the glory. It is a wonderful thing--that glory that is to follow.
+This would be worth a man sitting on the dunghill all his life to
+obtain." I looked at him, and thought, perhaps you are nearer to it
+than you think, and perhaps I am, too. Ah! it _is_ a wonderful thing,
+that glory that is to follow. Then let us be willing to suffer with Him
+and for Him. Make up your mind to be crucified at the start, and then it
+will be easy.
+
+Further, _complete abandonment_ is a condition of successful labor.
+
+It is so in anything. What would you think of a soldier who was
+always reckoning how much it was to cost, and when he should get
+back, or whether it was worth the sacrifice? You would say, "He is of
+no use to the British Army. We want men who will go in to win at all
+costs." Now, God wants men and women who will go in to win, who
+believe in winning, who know they have the power to win, and who
+count _all things_ loss in comparison to winning. Do you want
+success? If you do not come to that first, you will never get it.
+
+Fourthly--_You must give up, kick out of the way, trample underfoot, all
+that hinders._
+
+_Reputation_. Perhaps there are some ministers here. There were
+some last Sunday, and there were some the Sunday before. Some of you
+have written and others have talked to me. You say, "It would be such
+an entire breaking from one's circle." Exactly. Some say, "You see,
+the inevitable consequences of setting up this high standard would be
+a constant running of the sword into some of your best hearers and
+your best friends." Exactly; that is giving your sword to blood. You
+would not think much of drawing the blood of an enemy--it is the
+blood of your _friends_ that is the test! I know all about it; I
+have been there. I was there a long while once. It was my own sore
+spot. The devil said, "If you begin preaching they will call you an
+impudent woman," and I felt it would be better almost to go to hell
+than have that said about me. He said, "They will put you in the
+newspapers, and say all manner of coarse and vulgar things about
+you;" and God only knows what that was to my soul; but I battled and
+struggled with it for a long while, until I said, at last, "Lord, I
+don't care what they call me--I give myself to Thee to win souls."
+Have I ever regretted it? Shall I ever regret it? No; He will take
+care of your reputation. Give it up to Him, my brother. The Scribes
+and the Pharisees never had anything good to say of Jesus coming in
+the flesh. Give up your reputation--follow Him. If it must be, decide
+to go after Him to Gethsemane, to Golgotha and the cross. Never
+mind--follow Him. Give up your reputation.
+
+Then, your habits. How ashamed some of you will be who have made the
+mere Paris-born frivolities of society stand in the way of your
+consecration to Christ; and yet people who do this say they are
+Christians. I don't know; I cannot believe it. There is drinking;
+they will have a glass of wine. Very well, you can have it; but you
+shall not have the wine of the kingdom. Professors will dress like
+the prostitute of Paris. Very well; but they shall not be the bride
+of the Lamb. He will not walk in the streets with them, nor sit at
+the same table. You can go to parties where it is said there are only
+religious people, but where you know all manner of gossip and
+Christless chit-chat is going on, which you would be awfully ashamed
+the Master should hear, and from which you retire with no appetite
+for prayer. You can go to all this, but I defy you to have the Holy
+Ghost at the same time. I won't stop to argue it; I ONLY KNOW YOU
+CANNOT DO IT. All that will have to be put aside and given up. You
+say, "That is a sore point." Yes; I know that is driving the sword to
+blood.
+
+Fifthly.--You must consecrate your money to be used for God.
+
+I once heard an old veteran saint say, and I thought it was
+extravagant at the time, "I consider the use of money the surest test
+of a man's character." I thought, no, surely his use of his wife and
+children is a surer test than that; but I have lived to believe his
+sentiment. Hence, you see how human experience justifies Divine
+wisdom--"the love of money is the root of all evil". So it is, in one
+form or other. God never uses anybody largely until they have given
+up their money. I simply state a fact. We know it is so by experience
+and the history of God's people. You must give up your money as an
+end: saving it for its own sake, or the gratification of your selfish
+purposes or those of your children--it must be all given to God, to
+whom it belongs, being entirely used in His service. If you want to
+be a successful laborer for souls, you will have to do that at the
+threshhold. Give up your money to the Lord. If you think it right to
+keep some of it, keep it to use it for Him as you go; and be as
+strict with yourself, to your Heavenly Father, as you would be with
+your secretary or clerk to yourself, and then you will be all right.
+
+It is a narrow and difficult path. I tremble for you who have got
+it, and I am glad I have not; but as you have got it, I give you the
+best advice I know. It is an awful thing to have it, but the next
+best thing is to consecrate it and use it to His glory; and if you do
+not, it will eat into your soul as doth a canker. To your spiritual
+nature it will be as a cancer is to your physical nature. They are
+Paul's words, not mine.
+
+I must say a word about _the reward_.
+
+You think I am always driving you _to do_. Yes, because you
+need it. The Lord knows I do not find you do any too much. Some of
+you I am heartily ashamed of. Some of you need driving so that you
+ought to thank God for the rod. Paul says, "Shall I come unto you
+with the rod?" He was obliged to do it with some people. It is not an
+enviable thing to have to do; but we dare not, when God sets us work
+to do, shirk it; but there is a bright side--there is the reward.
+"What!" you say, "does He pay you?" Yes, good wages--pressed down--
+heaped together! He says, "The man who remembereth the poor (do you
+think He means only their bodies?), I will remember him; I will make
+his bed (what a tender allusion!) in his sickness." He will shake it
+up; spread His feathers on the pillows as no earthly nurse, not even
+the tenderest wife, can do. "I will make his bed in his sickness."
+You will want Him then, brother! You are very independent, some of
+you, now, but you will want Him then. "I will make his bed in
+sickness. I will put underneath Him my everlasting arms." He will
+cause you to triumph in the swellings of Jordan. That will be grand,
+will it not? He will give you a triumphant entrance into His kingdom,
+those of you who have gone out in loving solicitude and anxious
+sympathy to labor for the souls of your fellow-men. He will
+administer unto you an abundant entrance, and then--what? He will
+give you CHILDREN; and the barren woman shall have more children than
+she that hath a husband.
+
+Oh! the whole world is akin here. Every man and woman wants
+children. They are especially a heritage from the Lord. Nothing can
+make up for the want of children. The poorest parents, living in the
+humblest hut, would not sell you their children, and the rich man,
+who has twenty thousand a year, would give it for a son or for a
+daughter, when he cannot have one. All human beings want children.
+Now, then, the Lord will give you children. A mother--even a
+sanctified mother--I suppose, cannot help feeling proud, or, rather,
+glad and thankful, when she shows good, obedient, and godly children
+to her friends. I do not believe that God wants to grind this out of
+us. I believe He delights in it Himself, just as He delighted to show
+His servant Job to the devil. "Hast thou considered My servant Job?"
+Ah! was He not proud of him?--and He has been proud of him ever
+since. God has put this feeling in us, and it is a right feeling when
+it is sanctified. We cannot help but be proud of godly and obedient
+children; but what will it be to show your spiritual children, to the
+angels? How shall you feel when you gather the spiritual family which
+God has given you round the throne of your Saviour, and say, "Here am
+I and the children whom Thou hast given me"?--the children won
+through conflict, and trial, and strife, such as only God knew;
+"Children begotten in bonds," as Paul says--chains--children born in
+the midst of the hurricane of spiritual conflict, travail, and
+suffering, and cradled, rocked, fed, nurtured, and brought up at
+infinite cost and rack of brain, and heart, and soul; but now, here
+we are, Lord. We are here through it all. "Here am I and the children
+whom Thou hast given me." How shall you feel? Shall you be sorry for
+the trouble? Shall you regret the sacrifice? Shall you murmur at the
+way He has led you? Shall you think He might have made it a little
+easier, as you are sometimes tempted to do now? Oh! no, no!--THE
+CHILDREN! THE CHILDREN! you shall have children! Won't that be reward
+enough?
+
+Oh! sometimes, when I am passing through conflict, and trial, in
+connection with a work which brings plenty of it behind the scenes, I
+encourage myself in the Lord, and remember those who have gone home
+sending me their salutations, from the verge of the river, telling me
+they will wait and look out for me, and be the first to hand me to
+the Saviour when I get there. Will not this be reward enough? Even
+so, Lord. Amen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+ENTHUSIASM AND FULL SALVATION.
+
+AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN EXETER HALL.
+
+
+Why should we be enthusiastic in everything but religion? Can you
+give me any reason for that? If there is any subject calculated to
+move our souls to their very centres, and to call out the enthusiasm
+of our nature, surely it is religion, if it be the real thing. Why
+should we not be enthusiastic? I have never seen a good reason yet.
+Why should we not shout and sing the praises of our King, as we
+expect to do it in glory? Why should not a man cry out, and groan,
+and be in anguish of soul, as the Psalmist says, as if he were crying
+out of the belly of hell, when he is convinced of sin, and realizes
+his danger, and is expecting, unless God have mercy, to be damned?
+Why should he not roar for the disquietude of his spirit as much as
+David did? Is there anything unphilosophical in it? Is there anything
+contrary to the laws of mind in it? Is there anything that you would
+not allow under any great pressure of calamity, or realization of
+danger, or grief? Why should we not have this demonstration in soul
+matters? They had it under the old dispensation. We read, again and
+again, that when the people came together after a time of relapse,
+and backsliding, and infidelity, when God sent some flaming, burning
+prophet amongst them, and they were gathered on the sides of Carmel
+or elsewhere, that, on some occasions, the weeping, and, on other
+occasions, the rejoicing, was so great that they made the very ground
+tremble, and almost rent the heavens with the sound of their crying
+and rejoicing.
+
+We are told, on one occasion, that the noise was heard afar off,
+and, on another, that it was as the sound of many waters. Would to
+God we could get men, now-a-days, so concerned about their sins and
+their souls, that they should thus cry out. It would be a happy day
+for religion and for the world if it were so. If these things are
+realities, I contend that this is the most sane, rational, and
+philosophical way of dealing with them; and I say that the ordinary,
+cold, heartless, formal way (and, if it is not so, it has that
+appearance) is unscriptural.
+
+Somebody was talking to me about having so much feeling in religion.
+I said, "My dear friend, what do you think God gave you feeling for?"
+Some people seem to think it a mistake that we _have_ feelings.
+Our feelings play a very important part in all our social relations.
+Why would you exclude them from religion? David expressed his
+feelings, and was so carried away by them that he called on all
+creation to praise the Lord, the hills and the trees to clap their
+hands and be glad. Get the right kind of religion, and it will make
+you glad. If you have not the right kind of feeling, I am afraid you.
+have not the right kind of religion. We have some enthusiasm, and
+when our enthusiasm dies, I am afraid we shall die, too. Nevertheless,
+our power is not in our enthusiasm; neither does it consist in certain
+views of truth, or in certain feelings _about_ truth. But it consists in
+whole-hearted, thorough, out-and-out surrender to God; and that, with or
+without feeling, is the right thing, and _that_ is the secret of our
+power. We have glorious feelings as the outcome; but the feeling is not
+the religion--the feeling is not the holiness. Holiness is the spring
+and source of the enthusiasm. Hence our power with the masses of the
+people.
+
+How is it that wherever we go, as an organization, these signs and
+wonders are wrought? Somebody said, "It is a strange thing; see what
+has been done at So-and-so, and So-and-so, and So-and-so. They had
+all tried, and you send a couple of lads or lasses, and you have the
+town in an uproar at once. What is it? What is the secret? Will you
+answer the question?" Well, it is the whole-hearted, determined
+abandonment of everything for the King's sake. That is it. It is
+going in, as the Apostles went in, determined to win souls,
+determined to set up the kingdom of Jesus Christ, at all costs. That
+is the source of our power, and if you get that, you will have power,
+and if you don't get that, it matters not what else you have. I want
+you reasonably and calmly to see that this holiness is a real,
+definite blessing; that it is a level on to which the great mass of
+the professing Christians of this generation have not come, or even
+scarcely looked up. It is a high level, but it is a level on to which
+every one of you can come, if you will. You have heard enough about
+it. You are convinced you may have it. Will you have it? The Lord is
+sitting there; He is looking at you, and He is saying, "What is all
+this stir about? What is all this talk, this singing, and this
+praying about? Here I am. What do you want Me to do? I am ready to do
+it." And you say, "Lord, I want Thee to cleanse my heart from sin,
+and to fill me with the Holy Ghost, and to enable me to be whole-
+hearted and thorough in Thy service, and to go and win souls for
+Thee." "Very well," the Lord says, "I am ready to come into the
+temple, if you will clear out the rubbish. Are you willing for Me to
+come in? I am waiting to come in as a Refiner; but you must make a
+straight way for my feet. You must pick out the stones, and throw out
+the rubbish, and make Me a straight path."
+
+Will you make Him a straight path? Will you trample under foot that
+accursed thing which has so long kept the fulness of the blessing
+from you? Will you give up arguing about it and trying to make out
+that it is not a stumbling-block, when you know it is? How many will?
+I wish we had room to have a form. I am sorry we have not. With all
+the light you have on the subject, with what I am sure the Holy Ghost
+has revealed and is revealing to your souls, with all the glory that
+He is putting before you, and the power for usefulness and happiness,
+will you make this full consecration? The light of the Spirit is on
+you: _will you, act? Will you act?_ Every spark of light you get
+without obeying it, leaves your soul darker. Every time you come up
+to the verge of the kingdom and don't go over, the less the
+probability that you ever will. I know people who have been going up
+and down for more than forty years, like the Israelites, and it is a
+question if they ever go in. You have come near again. Will you go
+over? You can tell the Lord without telling us, though we would like
+to know, and see you put your foot over the border, into this Canaan
+of peace and power. Will you put your foot over? Who will? who will?
+Will you stand up and raise your voices to the Lord and ask Him?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+HINDRANCES TO HOLINESS.
+
+
+I shall try, in the short time I may occupy, to go straight to the
+point--to some of the difficulties and hindrances which I know are
+keeping not a few here to-day out of the enjoyment of the blessing. I
+know there are some here who are satisfied that this blessing is
+attainable, who are satisfied that God can thus keep them, as we have
+been singing, if they were to lean the whole weight of their need--
+their soul, and body, and spirit--upon Him, and trust Him. They
+believe He could, and they believe He would. They have come to
+perceive that it is not at all a question of human strength, or human
+weakness, or human knowledge, but that it is simply a matter of
+Divine strength, fully recognized and fully trusted by human
+weakness. Therefore, there is no more a stumbling-block in their way
+about reckoning themselves holier than other people, or stronger than
+other people, for they recognize themselves as the very weakest and
+most sinful of _all_ people: but they have come to understand
+this blessing to be human weakness, leaning with all its weight upon
+Divine power; and they believe God does thus save and keep those
+people who do thus lean. Then, what hinders? There they stand, just
+where the Israelites stood, when they might have gone in and
+possessed the good land. "They entered not in because of unbelief,"
+and for that unbelief there is a reason--a cause. They dare not
+venture their souls on this Divine power, because there is back in
+their consciousness some difficulty, some obstacle, something which
+is only known to themselves and the Holy Ghost, which prevents them
+from doing this.
+
+When they try to jump on to the Divine strength there is something
+that holds them back, and they cannot make the spring. They try to
+forget it--they sing, and pray, and seek, to make themselves believe
+there is nothing, and they come up again and again right to the
+entrance of the goodly land, and then they try to spring in. Some of
+you will today, but you will not be able to spring, because there is
+something holding you back; and you are conscious of it, but will not
+allow yourselves to realize it. Now this is the point, when my dear
+husband read that passage, "When they had prayed, the place was
+shaken," I thought, Oh! what was involved in that prayer--what does
+that mean? _Why_ did the glory come? Why did the Holy Ghost
+overshadow them? Why were they filled with God--so filled that they
+had to go down and could not help themselves, but went into the
+streets and poured it out upon the godless multitudes around them?
+_Why, why_ did it come? Why do hundreds of assemblies of God's
+people meet and pray, but nothing comes? They hold long meetings, and
+make long prayers, and sing,
+
+  "We are waiting for the fire;"
+
+but nothing comes! Why did it come on that particular occasion?
+Because in that prayer was thorough, entire, everlasting self-
+abandonment. They came up caring for nothing but pleasing God and
+doing as He bade them; and the Holy Ghost alone knows when a soul
+arrives at that point. He will never come till the soul _does_
+arrive at that point. This is the deficiency, I am satisfied, with
+hundreds. There they stand, right on the borders of the glory-land,
+but there is some wedge of gold, or Babylonish garment that they
+buried years ago.
+
+They won't think about it. They say, "Oh, it is nought, nought! That
+little thing would not hinder, it is so long ago." They would not,
+when they knew they ought, dig it up and burn it before the Lord. If
+this is so with any here, you _must_ dig it up, or the Holy Ghost will
+never come. A lady, a short time ago, was brought up to the very edge of
+this blessing, but there was something she felt she ought to do. She had
+a sum of money which she felt ought to be given up to a certain object.
+She prayed and struggled, and attended prayer-meetings, and prayed long
+into the night; but, no, she would not face the difficulty. She said,
+"Oh! no; I am not satisfied in my own mind. How do I know God wants it
+for that purpose?" She might have struggled till now if she had not made
+up her mind to obey; but, the moment she did--alone, up in her bedroom,
+the blessing came. A gentleman came up to the penitent-form, after one
+of my West-end services, last season, and told me: "I am a preacher. I
+have been laboring in the Gospel for eight years, but I know I am
+utterly destitute of this power." "Do you want it?" "Oh!" he said, "I
+do;" and he looked as though he were sincere. "Then," I said, "what is
+it? There is a hindrance. It is not God's fault. He wants you to have it
+He is as willing to give you the Spirit as He was Peter or Paul, and
+you want to have it. Now, _will you have it?_ Have you understood the
+conditions?" "Ah!" he said, "_that_ is the point." Now, you know I
+should be a false comforter if I were to try to make you believe you
+were right when you had not yielded that point. "Well," he said, "you
+see it would be cutting loose from one's entire circle." Ah! he was led,
+you see, by "Christian friends." I said, "Did not the Lord Jesus cut
+loose from His circle to save you? and, if your Christian friends are
+such that to live a holy life you must cut loose from them, what are you
+going to do--stop in that circle, ruin your own soul, and help to ruin
+them, or cut loose and help to save them?" Oh! there is no profounder
+philosophy in any text in the Bible than that--"How can ye believe who
+receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor that cometh from
+God only?" You will have to come to God not caring what anybody thinks.
+
+As a dear lady, who is going through floods of persecution for
+Jesus, said, "I don't care if they turn their backs on me, and never
+speak to me any more, and cast me out, and my children, too. I don't
+care if I can only have His presence and follow Him." When you come
+to that you will get this pearl.
+
+I know a father and mother who want this blessing,--especially the
+mother. They have a family of beautiful little children, but the
+father says, "What are we going to do for our children? It is a very
+serious matter cutting loose from our circle." A gentleman said to
+me, "I have to do _something_ for my sons. What am I to do?"
+"No," I said, "you have got to do nothing for your sons. You have to
+train them for God, and leave GOD _to do for them_, and He is
+well able to look after His own. That is your business; train them
+for God, and leave God to find a niche for them, and if He can't on
+earth, I warrant you He will in Heaven." People have things wrong way
+up now-a-days. They have the notion that they have to do this, that,
+and the other, for themselves and their children, instead of
+accepting it as their great commission that they have to propagate
+and push along and extend the kingdom of Jesus Christ, to seek His
+kingdom and His righteousness, and leave Him to look after their
+interests. When you come to this it will soon be done.
+
+
+  A FRAGMENT.
+
+  Love Him, trust Him,
+    Him alone;
+  Father, Keeper,
+    Three in One.
+
+  Saviour, Master,
+    Leader, too;
+  Lover, Brother,
+    ALL to you.
+
+  Fear not, care not,
+    Only follow
+  His way, this day,
+    And to-morrow.
+
+  Waiting, working,
+    For His sake;
+  Watching, hoping,
+    Till daybreak.
+
+  Peaceful, joyful,
+    In His peace;
+  Filled full, kept full,
+    By His grace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+ADDRESSES ON HOLINESS,
+
+IN EXETER HALL.
+
+FIRST ADDRESS.
+
+
+I think it must be self-evident to everyone present that it is
+_the most important question_ that can possibly occupy the mind
+of man--how much like God we can be--how near to God we can come on
+earth preparatory to our being perfectly like Him, and living, as it
+were, in His very heart for ever and ever in Heaven. Anyone who has
+any measure of the Spirit of God, must perceive that this is the most
+important question on which we can concentrate our thoughts; and the
+mystery of mysteries to me is, how anyone, with any measure of the
+Spirit of God, can help looking at this blessing of holiness, and
+saying, "Well, even if it does seem too great for attainment on
+earth, it is very beautiful and very blessed. I wish I could attain
+it." That, it seems to me, must be the attitude of every person who
+has the Spirit of God--that he should hunger and thirst after it, and
+feel that he shall never be satisfied till he wakes up in the lovely
+likeness of his Saviour. And yet, alas! we do not find it so. In a
+great many instances, the very first thing professing Christians do,
+is to resist and reject this doctrine of holiness as if it were the
+most foul thing on earth.
+
+I heard a gentleman saying, a few days ago--a leader in one circle
+of religion--that for anybody to talk about being holy, showed that
+they knew nothing of themselves, and nothing of Jesus Christ. I said,
+"Oh, my God! it has come to something if holiness and Jesus Christ
+are at the antipodes of each other. I thought He was the centre and
+fountain of holiness. I thought it was in Him only we could get any
+holiness, and through Him that holiness could be wrought in us." But
+this poor man thought this idea to be absurd.
+
+May God speak for Himself! Ever since I heard that sentiment I have
+been crying from the depths of my soul, "Lord, speak for Thyself;
+powerfully work on the hearts of Thy people and awake them. Take the
+veil from their eyes, and show them what Thy purpose in Christ Jesus
+concerning them _is_. Do not let them be bewildered and miss the
+mark; do not leave them, but Lord, reveal it in their hearts." There
+is no other way by which it can be revealed, and, if you will let
+Him, He will reveal it in your heart.
+
+It occurred to me that I might say a word or two on what my husband
+said about infirmities, because I am so continually meeting people
+who _will make infirmities sins_. They insist upon it that the
+requirements of the Adamic law have never been abated; that we are
+not under the evangelical law of love, or the law of Christ, as the
+Apostle puts it, but that we are still under the Adamic law, and that
+these imperfections and infirmities, to which my husband has
+referred, are sins. I wonder that such people do not think of a
+certain passage, which must forever explode such a theory, where the
+Apostle says, "Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my
+infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." If these
+infirmities had been sins, we should have the outrageous anomaly of
+an apostle of Jesus Christ glorying in his sins! You see, his
+infirmities were only those defects of mind and body which were
+capable of being overcome and overruled by grace, to the glory of
+Christ and to the furtherance of His kingdom.
+
+I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me
+--that, in consequence of these very infirmities, the power of Christ
+shall so rest upon me as to lift me above them, make me independent
+of them, master of them, so that, through these very infirmities, I
+shall more glorify His strength and grace than if I were a perfect
+man, in mind and body. In another place he says, "And lest I should
+be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations,
+there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan,
+to buffet me." Some people think this was _sin_; but surely, the
+words, "messenger of Satan," show that this thorn was no act or
+disposition of Paul's, but some external temptation or affliction,
+inflicted by Satan. Besides, the Divine assurance, "My grace is
+sufficient for thee," _ought_ to forbid the idea of sin. Paul
+sought the Lord thrice to have this thorn removed; surely if it had
+been _sin_, the Lord would, have been as anxious to have it
+removed as His servant was! This thorn was, doubtless, some physical
+trial--as the words, "in the flesh," indicate--some tribulation or
+sorrow, through the patient endurance of which the strength of Christ
+could be magnified in Paul's weakness--one of those things which he
+could bear "through Christ who strengthened him."
+
+But mark, this was a Divinely-permitted discipline to _prevent
+Paul_ from falling into sin; quite a different thing to sin
+itself. "God tempteth no man with evil." The Lord sent this to Paul
+for the purpose _not of making_ him humble, for he was humbled
+before, but of keeping him humble. And does He not send something to
+us all? Do we not need trials and tribulations in the flesh in order
+to keep us humble? But is this evidence that, because we require
+these things to keep us humble, therefore pride is dwelling in us and
+reigning over us? It is an evidence just to the contrary.
+
+Oh, that people, in their enquiries about this blessing of holiness,
+would keep this one thing before their minds, that it is _being
+saved from sin_!--sin in act, in purpose, in thought!
+
+I have a beautiful letter, received a short time ago from a young
+lady, who wrote me soon after my former services in the West End. She
+told me that she had been the bondslave, I think, for four or five
+years, of a certain besetting sin, and her first letter was the very
+utterance of despair. She had struggled and wrestled and prayed, and
+tried to overcome the sin that had been reigning over her. Now and
+then she would get the victory, and then down she went again, and she
+said, "It is such a subtle thing, connected with my thoughts and
+imagination, so that I do not think I ever can be saved." I answered
+the letter, and tried to encourage her faith and hope in Jesus
+Christ. I showed her how dishonoring this unbelief was, and that, if
+she would only trust Him to come in and reign in her heart, He could
+purify and cleanse the very thoughts and imagination. She made a
+little advance, and wrote me another letter. I wrote her again, and
+encouraged her to trust further. She said she could not come so far
+as to think that He could purify her thoughts. She had got as far as
+to believe that He could save her from putting them into practice,
+but she could not believe that He could purify _them_. I wrote
+her back once more, and tried, the Lord helping me, to show her how
+Jesus, by the inspiration of His Holy Spirit, could purify the very
+thoughts of our hearts, and, thank God, she did go another step. I
+have had two letters from her since. She said in the first of them,
+"I rejoice with trembling, for fear it should be only temporary, but
+I have trusted Him to purify the source, and I must say HE HAS DONE
+IT, and, instead of thinking these thoughts, I have holy thoughts,
+and if Satan presents anything to my mind, it is so repulsive to me
+that I cannot tell you the grief and horror with which it fills me."
+I wrote her again, encouraging her, and I got another letter, in
+which she said, "It is a fact that He has cleansed the thoughts of my
+heart, and now I am conscious that my thoughts are pleasing to Him,
+that He has saved me from this sin which has been the trouble and
+torment of my life for all these years gone by."
+
+Now, what I want to say to you, is, that what He can do for one, He
+can do for another. If I am wrong here, I give up the whole question.
+I am perfectly mistaken in the purpose and aim and command of the
+Gospel dispensation, if God does not want His people to be pure. Not
+to count themselves pure when they _are not_. Oh, no! We are
+told, over and over again, that God wants His people to be pure, and
+THAT PURITY IN THEIR HEARTS IS THE VERY CENTRAL IDEA AND END AND
+PURPOSE OF THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST; if it is not so, I give up the
+whole question--I am utterly deceived.
+
+In justification of this, I have selected two or three texts which
+seem to put it all in one; summing-up texts, so to speak. I will take
+first, as a specimen, what my husband has been trying to enforce--"The
+will of God is your sanctification." There is, however, a sense,
+and an important sense, in which sanctification must be the will of
+man. It must be _my_ will, too, and if it is not my will, the
+Divine will can never be accomplished in me. I must _will_ to be
+sanctified, as God is willing that I should be sanctified. There are
+as many, and more, exhortations in the Bible to sanctify yourselves
+than there are promises of God to sanctify you.
+
+The next text is James iv. 8: "Draw nigh to God, and He will draw
+nigh to you. Cleanse _your_ hands, _ye_ sinners; and purify _your_
+hearts _ye_ double-minded." This was to backsliders, to people who had
+been professing to believe, but who had gone back under the dominion of
+their fleshly appetites and passions. There are two or three other texts
+where we seem to get the whole matter summed up, as, for instance, "He
+gave Himself for us (that is, for us Christians, the whole Church of
+God) that He might redeem us from _all iniquity_, and purify unto
+Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."--That is, purify
+_us_. And then 1 Timothy i. 5 shows God's purpose and aim in the whole
+method of redemption. "Now the end of the commandment is charity out of
+a _pure heart_, and of a _good conscience_, and of faith
+unfeigned"--cleansed and kept clean, for if it had been cleaned and
+become dirty again, it would not be a good but a bad conscience. And
+again, in I John iii. 3: "And every man that hath this hope in Him,
+purifieth himself, even as He is pure." Now, I say, these are summing-up
+texts, and there are numbers of others to the same effect, to show
+that the whole end and purpose of redemption is this--that He will
+restore us to purity; that He will bring us back to righteousness;
+that He will purge your consciences from dead works to serve the
+living God--not only purge you from the past, but keep you purged to
+serve the LIVING GOD; that it shall be done by the application of the
+blood to the conscience, and then it shall be maintained by the power
+of the Holy Ghost keeping us in a state of purity and obedience to
+righteousness.
+
+Now, I say, if this be not the central idea of Christianity, I do
+not understand it. If God cannot do this for me--if Jesus Christ
+cannot do this for me, what is my advantage at all by His coming?
+
+There is a great deal more in these epistles directed to the individual
+Christian to _be_ this, that, and the other, and to _do_ this, that, and
+the other, than there is about what God will do for him after all! This
+is not an objective Christianity--this is not sitting down and
+sentimentalizing and thinking of Christ in the Heavens, in these
+epistles; it brings Him down, to all intents and purposes, INTO OUR
+HEARTS AND LIVES HERE, and it is one of the continual exhortations, _be_
+ye this, and _do_ ye this and the other.
+
+These epistles represent a real, practical transformation to be
+accomplished IN US, and this is the only thing that will do to die
+with. If it is not accomplished in you, I tell you, you will not be
+able to die in peace. You will want to be cleansed, as my dear
+husband told you, before you can venture into the presence of the
+King of kings. You will want a sense of beautiful, moral rectitude
+and righteousness spreading over your whole nature, which will enable
+you to look up into the face of God and say, "Yes, I love Thee, I
+know Thee, and Thou knowest me, and lovest me, and we are one. I love
+the things Thou lovest, and desire the things Thou desirest. We are
+of one spirit, 'joined in one spirit unto the Lord.'" You will want
+that, and nothing less will do to die with. And why not have it? Will
+you have it? Why not let God work it in us? Will you try it? People
+are constantly saying, "They long for it, and they wish they could
+get it." Will you let God do it? Will you put away the depths of
+unbelief which are at the bottom of all your difficulty? People
+really do not believe that God _can_ do it for them, and that is
+at the bottom of their difficulties. But He can do it, and He
+promises to do it. Will you go down, and say, "Be it unto me
+according to Thy word"?
+
+
+  "BORN--A SAVIOUR."
+    Luke ii. 11.
+
+  Jesus a Saviour born,
+    Without:
+  Without the inn, refused with scorn.
+    Cast out:
+  Cast out for me, my Saviour, King,
+  Cast out to bring this lost one in.
+
+  Jesus a Saviour born,
+    A man:
+  A man of sorrows, smitten, torn by stripes:
+  By stripes, O Lord, my soul is healed,
+  By stripes, Thy stripes, my pardon sealed.
+
+  Jesus a Saviour born,
+    The Lamb:
+  The Lamb of God hath bled and borne
+    My sins:
+  My sins the Sacrifice did slay,
+  My sins the Lamb doth take away.
+
+  Jesus a Saviour born
+    To save:
+  To save at night, at noon, at morn.
+    To keep:
+  To keep from sin, from doubt, from fear;
+  To keep, for lo! the Keeper's here.
+
+  Jesus a Saviour born,
+    A King:
+  A King! exalt His glorious horn,
+    And sing:
+  O sing, ye heavens! He burst His grave,
+  And sing, O earth! He lives to save!
+
+
+
+
+SECOND ADDRESS.
+
+
+  I beseech yon therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye
+  present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God,
+  which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world:
+  but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove
+  what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.--ROM.
+  xii. 1,2.
+
+I have been thinking about the word in the text, "_that_"--"that
+ye may prove what is that good and acceptable, and perfect will
+of God." This advance in the Divine life, as well as every other,
+right to the end, till we advance into glory, has its _conditions_.
+The condition of the advance from an absolutely unawakened worldly
+condition, to that of a convinced sinner, _is the reception of
+the light_. God awakens and enlightens tens of thousands, and
+thousands reject the light--instantly put it away--shut their eyes
+--will not have the light. These go back into greater darkness,
+and sin with more alacrity than ever they did before;--those who
+receive the light advance into the condition of awakened, enlightened
+souls.
+
+The next condition of advance from the state of a struggling sinner,
+willing to part with his sins and to follow Christ, _is faith_,
+to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, that he may receive the
+forgiveness of sins. And at every advance onwards, if the believer is
+ever to get beyond the first principles, if he is ever to grow a
+single inch, so to speak, there is a condition involved in that
+advance! For instance, if, after conversion, the Holy Spirit reveals
+to him something which is inconsistent--which he did not before see--
+the condition of his advance another step is the _renunciation_
+of that thing!--the reception of the light, and _obedience to
+it;_ and, if he shrinks from and does not receive and obey the
+light, he will never advance _any more_ until he does. There are
+thousands of Christians, who, instead of advancing, have gone back
+since their conversion, because they would not comply with the
+condition, "THAT" they might prove the good, and acceptable, and
+perfect will of God.
+
+There was a condition. They would have proved the will of God if
+there had been no condition; but there was a condition they would not
+comply with; so there they stick, just where they were--or, rather,
+they have gone backward.
+
+Well, now, then, here is a condition to _this_ grand and glorious
+advance from the state of justification, where, while the believer is
+given power over sin, so that it does not rule over him, yet he
+sometimes, through its inward workings, falls under its power--the
+advance from this comparatively sinning and repenting condition
+on to that platform where the believer so abides in Christ that he
+sins not, that he loves God with all his heart, and soul, and mind,
+and strength--so united to Christ that, walking in the power of the
+Holy Ghost, he fulfils the law of love under which he is placed--the
+advance, I say, from that up and down, in and out, falling and rising
+state, to this higher platform, also has its _conditions_.
+
+You would go up to it to-day if it were not for the conditions; most
+of you would go up in a body, as the Israelites would have gone into
+Canaan, if there had been no condition. I never knew anyone so
+foolish as not to want to be in the good land; they want to be in, of
+course, and they would go in and get the honey and the milk, but
+there are the _conditions!_ Now then, here you have it plain,
+and you have it in numbers of other passages equally plain.
+
+There is nothing upon which the Holy Ghost has been more particular
+than in laying down the conditions. And what are they? "I beseech
+you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your
+bodies a living sacrifice"--the living man--you, all of you; not
+_it_--not something in you.
+
+The latter term is never used by the Holy Ghost when speaking to
+Christians, but always _you, ye, your_ bodies, _your_ souls, _your_
+mind, the whole man--YOU, "a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto
+God, _which is_ your reasonable service." And is it not? Is it too much?
+Is it more than He bargained for when He bought you? Is it more than He
+paid for? It is "your reasonable service."
+
+And now, then, comes the conditions: "And be _not conformed to this
+world: but be ye transformed_ by the renewing of your mind, _that_ ye
+may prove."
+
+Oh! if you could be transformed to Him and conformed to this world
+at the same time, all the difficulty would be over. I know plenty of
+people who would be transformed directly; but, to be not conformed to
+this world--how they stand and wince at that! They cannot have it at
+that price. As dear Finney once said, "My brother, if you want to
+find God, you will not find Him up there, amongst all the starch and
+flattery of hell; you will have to come down for Him." That is
+it--"Be not conformed to this world."
+
+Nothing wounds me more, after being at meetings for dealing with
+souls, where I have tried to speak in a most pointed and thorough way
+to make everybody know what I meant, when I go to the dinner or
+supper-table, people have not known a bit, or, if they have, they
+won't accept it. Oh! this is the secret--they will not come down from
+their pride and high-mightiness. But God will not be revealed to such
+souls, though they cry and pray themselves to skeletons, and go
+mourning all their days. They will not fulfil the condition--"Be not
+conformed to this world;" they will not forego their conformity even
+to the extent of a dinner party. A great many that I know will not
+forego their conformity to the shape of their head-dress. They won't
+forego their conformity to the extent of giving up visiting and
+receiving visits from ungodly, worldly, hollow, and superficial
+people. They will not forego their conformity to the tune of having
+their domestic arrangements upset--no, not if the salvation of their
+children, and servants, and friends depends upon it. The _sine qua
+non_ is their own comfort, and then take what you can get, on God's
+side. "We _must_ have this, and we _must_ have the other; and then, if
+the Lord Jesus Christ will come in at the tail end and sanctify it all,
+we shall be very much obliged to Him; but we cannot forego these
+things."
+
+Oh! friends, I tell you, this will never do. God helping me, I will,
+I must tell you, because it is driven in upon my soul by what I am
+seeing and hearing every day. People come to these meetings, and they
+groan and cry and come to us for help, and we exhaust our poor brains
+and bodies in talking to them and giving them advice, telling them
+what to do, and, when it comes to the point, we find, "Oh! no; don't
+you be mistaken: we are not going to sacrifice these things. We
+cannot have the Lord if He will not come into our temples and take
+them as He finds them. We could not forego these things."
+
+You remember the text that was read at the opening of the meeting--
+"And the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world."
+It means something! and there are a hundred other texts teaching the
+same truth. Now, _what does it mean_? The Lord help us to see
+it! Does it not mean that we are not to be like the rest of the
+world?--that we are not to be guided by the same maxims, or act upon
+the same principles as the world?--that we are not to attach the
+same importance to mere earthly and worldly things that worldly
+people do? Have you ever thought of those awful words in the parable
+of the sower?--"And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of
+riches, and the lusts of other things, entering in, _choke_ the
+word, and it becometh unfruitful,"--not abominable things, not
+immoral things, not shameful things, but the _desire of other_
+things. And, in another text: "_Who mind earthly things_." They
+attach more importance to worldly things and other things than they
+do to the things of His kingdom. They practically make these things
+_first_, though they sing about His kingdom and profess to make
+Him first: they make the earthly things first, and, therefore, they
+will not have their earthly things upset for His things; and do you
+suppose He is cheated? Do you suppose He is deceived? Do you think it
+likely that the great God of Heaven, who has millions of angels and
+archangels to worship and serve Him, is going to pour His glory on
+such people, and reveal Himself to them, and use them? Not likely! "I
+will be first in your love," He says.
+
+You women here, if you knew that you were not the first and only one
+in the affections of your husband, what would you say? And you
+husbands, would you dwell with a wife if you knew you were not the
+only one in her affections, but that they were divided between you
+and someone else? "Not likely!" you would say; "I am not going to
+lavish my affections, and my society, and my gifts, and everything I
+possess, on one whose heart is divided with another. If she will have
+her heart divided, then she must go to that other."
+
+Now you know God is a jealous God, and He knows who do mock Him, and
+He knows who will not sacrifice this conformity to the world that
+they may walk with Him in white. He knows, also, who do not care what
+anybody thinks of them, or what people say of them; who are willing
+to be counted fools and fanatics that they may walk with Him and
+promote the interests of His kingdom, and who only regard their
+bodies as His instruments and their homes as His temples; who are
+willing that their breakfast hours, or dinner hours, or luncheon
+hours, or any other hours may be upset, and, in fact, everything made
+subservient to the interests of His kingdom. We must place everything
+at His service--our children, business, homes, and everything. If I
+understand it, this is nonconformity to the world.
+
+Before I close, let me say a word to help those who are desiring to
+attain this blessing. There is no other way. It is of no use beating
+about. BE NOT CONFORMED, BUT BE YE TRANSFORMED. These two are in
+juxtaposition. If you will be conformed, then you cannot be
+transformed; if you will not be transformed, then you must be
+conformed. Now, will you give up conformity to the world? If so, you
+may, everyone of you, be transformed this morning--go up into the
+land. You may all be saved to-day, and make your abiding-place in
+Christ, and have all the power and glory which comes to those who
+possess Him; you may advance from the miserable condition of a poor
+up-and-down, in-and-out, wretched man, on to the glorious vantage
+ground of a saved man--a saved woman--a triumphant saint of God!
+
+
+  FAITH.
+
+  My faith _looks up_ to Thee--
+   My faith, so small, so slow;
+  It lifts its drooping eyes to see
+   And claim the blessing now.
+      Thy wondrous gift
+       It sees afar;
+      Thy perfect love
+       It claims to share,
+      And doth not, cannot fear.
+
+  My faith _takes hold_ on Thee--
+   My faith, so weak, so faint;
+  It lifts its trembling hands to be,
+   Trembling, but violent.
+      The kingdom now
+       It takes by force,
+      And waits till Thou,
+       Its last resource,
+      Shall seal and sanctify.
+
+  My faith _holds fast_ on Thee,
+   My faith, still small, but sure,
+  Its anchor holds _alone_ to Thee,
+   Whose presence keeps me pure.
+      And Thou alway,
+       To see and hear,
+      By night, by day,
+       Art very near--
+      Art very near to me.
+
+
+
+
+THIRD ADDRESS.
+
+
+What a deal there is of going to meetings and getting blessed, and
+then going away and living just the same, until sometimes we, who are
+constantly engaged in trying to bring people nearer to God, go away
+so discouraged that our hearts are almost broken.
+
+We feel that people go back again from the place where we have led
+them, instead of stepping up to the place to which God is calling
+them. They come and come, and we are, as the Prophet says, unto them
+a very pleasant instrument, or a very unpleasant one, as the case may
+be; and so they go away, and do not _get anything_. They do not
+make any _definite advance_. We have not communicated unto them
+any spiritual gift. They merely have their feelings stirred, and,
+consequently, they live the next week exactly as they lived the last,
+and go down under the temptation just as they did before.
+
+Would you dream for a moment from reading the New Testament that
+this was the kind of thing God intended in His provisions of grace
+and salvation? Is there not a definite end in every promise,
+exhortation, and command? God is most _definite_ in His requirements and
+promises, and in the provision which He has made; and yet many of the
+Lord's people are perpetually and persistently _indefinite_. They go to
+and fro, like a door on its hinges, and never get anything from the
+Lord. We want you absolutely to get something from the Lord, and we are
+quite sure you may and _will_, if you comply with the condition. The
+Lord is ready to give you that particular measure of grace, strength,
+and salvation which you need. Now that you have come up to the
+threshhold of the goodly land, there is only one thing which can keep
+you out, provided you have made the needed consecration. Of course, if
+you are holding anything back, then you can never come in until you give
+that up. If yon are cleaving to some doubtful thing, and don't give God
+the benefit of the doubt, you can never come in; but, if you see this,
+and make the necessary consecration, if you _really_ desire this
+blessing, there is only one thing which can possibly keep you out of
+its enjoyment, and that is--_unbelief_.
+
+It will be said of you, in years to come, as it was said of some in
+olden times, "They entered not in because of unbelief." You have come
+right up to the threshhold, and some of you have been there many a
+time. Oh! what gracious influences you have been the subject of. You
+have seen through the veil! You have felt His hand! You have had your
+feet on the threshhold! You have been almost in, and then you have
+drawn back through unbelief. Shall it be so again to-night? God
+forbid! Will yon step over? Will you venture? Will you trust? Will
+yon leap on to His faithfulness? Will you spring into the arms of
+Omnipotent Love, and trust Him with consequences? Never mind if you
+_do_ die, or something happens to you that never happened to
+anyone else in the world's history; God will take care of you. Never
+mind if the devil does come round and "consider" you, as he did Job,
+and afflict you with boils, and put you upon the dunghill--you will
+be happier there with Jesus than in a palace without Him. Oh! this
+caring for consequences! The devil knows the grand _possibilities_
+open to many of you; he knows not only what you might receive and
+enjoy in yourselves, but what you might accomplish for God if you
+would only come in and possess this blessing; and so he frightens
+you with consequences. He knows what you might do, and whom you
+might be instrumental in saving!
+
+Who knows how many of these precious ones that cluster round you,
+you may be instrumental in leading on to this higher platform--this
+glorious vantage ground of Christian experience? and, through them,
+how many more? and how, in this way, the glorious blessing would
+spread? Remember, also, that every time you come near and go back,
+there is less _probability that you will ever come in at all_;
+and the nearer you come and go back, the less probability there is
+that you will ever come as near again.
+
+You _are grieving the Spirit_. There are some people who have been
+coming near for years, and now they have gone back altogether, and I am
+afraid they will never come up again. _What will you do?_ The law of the
+kingdom, from beginning to end, is, "According to your faith be it unto
+you," and, "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye
+receive _them_, and ye shall have _them_." _Eternal truth has uttered
+it_--"ye shall have them." Now then, will you? Have you let go all? Are
+your skirts free? Are you leaving all behind you? Are you resolved from
+to-night to cut from the past, and no more make any provision for the
+flesh to fulfil its lusts, but that you will bid the things that are
+behind a final adieu, close your eyes on them, and fix your eyes on the
+mark of the prize of your high calling, and press on every succeeding
+hour of your life until you reach it? Will you? If you will, God will
+give you this blessing. He waits to do it; He is here. The Holy Ghost is
+here: He is leading many of you up; He is beseeching you; He is
+seconding what I am saying, in your hearts; He is saying, "Come,
+beloved; come into the banqueting house;" He wants to bless you and
+fill you with His Spirit. Now then, will you come? Oh! the Lord help
+you not to draw back, but to press on, _press on, press on_, never
+minding the consequences.
+
+
+
+
+FOURTH ADDRESS.
+
+
+I think, dear friends, that I have only a very few words to say to
+you now. I am, as it were, holding on to God for power by which to
+say them, so that they shall sink into your hearts and produce some
+immediate and permanent results in your lives. I believe the Lord is
+not only grieved and disappointed, but I believe He is angry, when
+His people meet, and talk, and sing, and pray, and then go away
+without any definite result having been reached--without ever having
+given anything to Him, or received anything from Him. I believe He
+feels with respect to us, just as He felt with respect to His people
+of old, when He said, "Why come ye and cover my altar with tears?" As
+though He said, "You know what I want you to do; come and do it; and,
+when you do it, I will open the windows of Heaven and pour out a
+blessing."
+
+My heart ached at what a lady told me this morning, before I came
+into this hall. She said, "A friend of mine remarked, 'You don't mean
+to say that you are going to call four thousand people together to
+cry for the Holy Ghost?' She said, 'Yes, I do.' 'Well, it makes me
+frightened. What if anything should happen; if something should be
+done?'" Would to God something would happen; would to God something
+might be done that should frighten somebody. But oh! what did that
+reveal? Depths of infidelity and unbelief; and yet people wonder that
+infidelity is increasing. Is it any wonder that infidels are laughing
+us to scorn? Is it any wonder that at Christian Evidence Societies
+men get up and say that the Christian system has become effete? No
+wonder, when that is the state of heart of the Lord's people.
+
+People meet together, and pray, and talk, and sing "Whiter than
+snow," and they don't believe it any more than do the heathen. They
+pray for the Holy Ghost, and do not so much as believe there is a
+Holy Ghost. They ask God to do something, when they never knew Him to
+do anything, and don't expect He ever will. The world is dying
+because of this unreality, and being damned by it.
+
+Josephine Butler says, about France, "France is waiting for a
+_reality_:" and so is England, and so is the world waiting for a
+_reality_. God help us to make some _real people_. You believe, some of
+you, that nothing is going to happen. You don't believe that God is
+going to do anything--so He won't in your experience. If you had lived
+at Nazareth, do you think Jesus Christ would have done anything for you?
+If you had been deaf and dumb, you would have remained so, for He could
+not have done any mighty works in you, because of your unbelief! He is
+the same now; and if you don't expect Him to do anything, brother, He
+will not. But some of us do _expect_ Him to do _something_. Some of us
+_believe_ He is going to do _something_, and that by this little stone,
+cut out of a mountain, without hands, He intends to raise a great
+kingdom. Jesus Christ is not going to be disappointed, and allow the
+devil to chuckle in His face forever, and say, "I have cheated You out
+of Your inheritance." We will do something, or die in attempting it.
+
+After all, what does God want with us? He wants us just _to be_ and _to
+do_. He wants us to be like His Son, and then to do as His Son did; and
+when we come to that, He will shake the world through us. People say,
+"You can't be like His Son." Very well, then, you will never get any
+more than you believe for. If I did not think Jesus Christ strong enough
+to destroy the works of the devil, and to bring us back to God's
+original pattern, I would throw the whole thing up for ever. What! He
+has given, us a religion we cannot practice? I say, No, He has not come
+to mock us. What? He has given us a Saviour who cannot save? Then I
+decline to have anything to do with Him. What! does He profess to do for
+me what He cannot? No, no. He "is not a man, that He should lie: neither
+the Son of man, that He should repent:" and I tell you that His scheme
+of salvation is two-sided--it is God-ward and man-ward. It contemplates
+me as well as it contemplates the great God. It is not a scheme of
+salvation, merely--it is a scheme of _restoration_. If He cannot restore
+me, He must damn me. If He cannot heal me, and make me over again, and
+restore me to the pattern He intended me to be, He has left Himself
+no choice.
+
+I challenge anybody to disprove by the Bible that He proposes to
+_restore_ me--brain, heart, soul, spirit, body, every fibre of
+my nature--to restore me perfectly, to conform me wholly to the image
+of His Son. If He could have saved me without restoring me, then He
+could have saved me without a Saviour at all. How do you read your
+Bibles? How do you read the history of the miracles--the stories of
+His opening the eyes, unstopping the ears, cleansing the leper, and
+raising the dead? He will heal you if you will let Him. These are the
+sort of words the world wants--the living words, living embodiments
+of Christianity, walking embodiments of the Spirit, and life and
+power of Jesus Christ. You may scatter Bibles, as you have done, all
+over the world. You may preach, and sing, and talk, and do what you
+will; but, if you don't exhibit to the people _living epistles_,
+show them the transformation of character and life in yourself which
+is brought about by the power and grace of God--if you don't go to
+them and do the works of Jesus Christ, you may go on preaching, and
+the world will get worse and worse, and the church, too. We want a
+living embodiment of Christianity. We want JESUS TO COME IN THE FLESH
+AGAIN.
+
+Did you ever notice the tense in that passage--"He that believeth that
+Jesus is come in the flesh"--not that He _did_ come, or _was_ come, but
+that He _is_ come now. Oh! how people hate Jesus Christ in the flesh.
+You may be ever so devout, ever so Pharisaic, till you come to Jesus in
+the flesh, and then they will gnash on you with their teeth as they
+gnashed on Christ. They can't resist such people. This is what the world
+wants--holy people; and nothing else will do. We have tried everything
+else. You Christian people from other divisions of the Lord's forces,
+you have tried Bibles, and preaching, and singing, and services, and
+Sunday-schools. I have been lately to a part of the country where they
+told me that nearly every member of the population had passed through
+their Sunday-schools, and yet there are men there who will drag a young
+girl down a flight of stone stairs and kick her till she is black and
+blue. The great mass of the people who took part in the Lancashire Riots
+have passed through your Sunday-schools.
+
+Now, I say, God is speaking to you in these things, if only you will
+hear Him, and He is saying that the letter killeth, that
+circumcision, and baptism, and forms, and ceremonies, and going to
+chapel, and Bible reading, is all nothing, when there is no Holy
+Ghost in it. You want a real, living embodiment of Christianity over
+again, and if the Salvation Army is not going to be that, may God put
+it out! I would be willing to pronounce the funeral oration of the
+Army if I did not believe it was going to be that. The world is dying
+for this.
+
+I was so touched, yesterday, by hearing a story from Paris, told by
+a young woman who has just returned, and was telling me about my
+precious child. The story was this: A woman came, one morning, and
+asked for the lady. They tried to put her off, and asked, "Will not
+someone else do?" "No," said the woman; "I do want to see the lady
+herself." They said, "You can't see her to-day--she is too ill!"
+"Then," she said, "When can I see her?" They appointed a time the
+next afternoon, and then this poor woman came, and she told this
+story: "I did hear, six years ago, that there was somebody could take
+the devil out. Now, see, I have got a devil in, and he do make me
+wicked and miserable, and I do want him taken out, and I have been
+running about these six years to find somebody who could pull him
+out. I've been to lots of priests, but they could not pull him out
+because they had a devil in _them_; and, you see when there's a
+devil in me and a devil in them, we got to fighting, and they could
+not pull him out." What a comment on "Jesus I know, and Paul I know;
+but who are ye?" Of course, nobody can put a devil out who has a
+devil in them. The poor old woman's sense told her this.
+
+"And," she continued, "a gentleman told me that this lady who has
+come here is able to pull him out, and I have come to her to do it,
+for I want him pulled out." Oh, yes! I thought, that is what poor
+humanity wants all the world over. THEY WANT PEOPLE WHO CAN CAST THE
+DEVIL OUT--people who have in them Holy Ghost power to do it. Oh!
+will you be such an one?
+
+"Where is God?" someone said to me the other day, in agony--"Where
+is God?" Where, indeed! "Why does He not show Himself? Why does He
+not do something?" That lady was afraid something would happen when
+4,000 met together to beseech the Holy Ghost! Why not? You say He has
+not changed. Your creed says so. You say He is the same yesterday,
+to-day and forever. You say the needs of the world are as great. You say
+His great, benevolent heart beats for His fallen, sinful, erring
+human family. You say He loves us. You are always telling about His
+love. What is the reason He does not do something for us, and come
+down in the same plentitude of spiritual power as He did at
+Pentecost? Why? Only because you are not as given up to Him and as
+willing to do it as the people were in former times. You have not
+accounted all things dung and dross. You have not thrown everything
+into the scale, and, therefore, He will not thus baptize you with the
+Holy Ghost. These are the people that the world wants--people of one
+idea--Christ, and Him crucified. For Christ's sake, give up quibbling.
+
+I said to a lady who had got this blessing when somebody got at her
+and began with this verse and that verse, and this translation and
+that translation--"Mind you don't begin to reason; you will lose your
+blessing"--and she did lose it. You can't know it by understanding.
+Oh! if the world could have known it by understanding, what a deal
+they would have known. But He despises all your philosophy. It is not
+by understanding, but _by faith_! If ever you know God it will
+be by faith, becoming as a little child--opening your mouth, and
+saying, "Lord, pour in;" and then your quibbles and difficulties will
+be gone, and you will see holiness, sanctification, purity, perfect
+love, burning out on every page of God's Word. I weep before God, I
+feel almost more than I can bear, over this awful knack that some
+people seem to have of plucking the bread out of the children's
+mouths when they are just getting an appetite for it. The Lord have
+mercy upon them! If you don't come in yourselves, for Christ's sake
+don't keep other people out.
+
+A minister--a devoted, good man--was trying to show me that this
+sanctification was too big to be got and kept. I said, "My dear sir,
+how do you know? If another man has faith to march up to Jesus Christ
+and say, 'Here, I see this in your Book; You have promised this to
+me; now then, Lord, I have faith to take it:' mind you don't measure
+His privilege by your faith. Do you think the church has come up to
+His standard of privilege and obligation? I don't. It has many
+marches to make yet. Mind you don't hinder anybody." The law of the
+kingdom all the way through will be--"According to your faith." If
+you want this blessing, put down your quibbles, put your feet on your
+arguments, march up to the throne and ask for it, and kill, and
+crucify, and cast from you, the accursed thing which hinders it, and
+then you shall have it, and the Lord will fill you with His power and
+glory now, and something _will_ happen. The Lord grant it.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Godliness, by Catherine Booth
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GODLINESS ***
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