I believe that the best, surest, and most permanent way to fill a place of worship is to preach the gospel, and to preach it in a natural, simple, interesting, earnest way. The gospel itself has a singularly fascinating power about it, and unless impeded by an unworthy delivery, or by some other great evil, it will win its own way. It certainly did so at the first, and what is to hinder it now? Like the angels, it flew upon its own wings; like the dew, it tarried not for man, neither waited for the sons of men. The Lord gave the word; great was the company of them that published it; their line went forth throughout all the world, and the nations heard the glad tidings from heaven.
The gospel has a secret charm about it which secures a hearing: it casts its good spell over human ears, and they must hearken. It is God’s own word to men; it is precisely what human necessities require; it commends itself to man’s conscience, and, sent home by the Holy Spirit, it wakes an echo in every heart.
In every age, the faithful preaching of the good news has brought forth hosts of men to hear it, made willing in the day of God’s power. I shall need a vast amount of evidence before I shall come to the conclusion that its old power is gone. My own experience does not drive me to such a belief, but leads me in the opposite direction. Thirty years of crowded houses leave me confident of the attractions of divine truth: I see nothing as yet to make me doubt its sufficiency for its own propagation. Shorn of its graciousness, robbed of its certainty, spoiled of its peculiarities, the sacred word may become unattractive; but decked in the glories of free and sovereign grace, wearing the crown–royal of the covenant, and the purple of atonement, the gospel, like a queen, is still glorious for beauty, supreme over hearts and minds. Published in all its fulness, with a clear statement of its efficacy and immutability, it is still the most acceptable news that ever reached the ears of mortals. You shall not in my most despondent moments convince me that our Lord was mistaken when he said, “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto myself.”
Edited from The Sword and the Trowel (August, 1883).
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