“And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people.” Genesis 49:33

Jacob did not yield up the ghost until he had delivered the last sentence of admonition and benediction to his twelve sons.  He was immortal till his work was done.  So long as God had another sentence to speak by him, death could not paralyze his tongue.  Yet, after all, the strong man was bowed down, and he who had journeyed with unwearied foot for many a mile, was now obliged to gather up his feet into the bed to die.  His life had been eventful in the highest degree, but that dread event now came upon him which is common to us all.  He had deceived his blind father in his youth, but no craftiness of Jacob could deceive the grave.  He had fled from Esau, his angry brother, but a swifter and surer foot was now in pursuit from which there was no escape.  He had slept with a stone for his pillow and had seen heaven opened, but he was to find that it was only to be entered by the ordinary gate.  He had wrestled with the angel at the brook Jabbok, and he had prevailed: at this time he was to wrestle with an angel against whom there was no prevalence.  He had dwelt in Canaan in tents in the midst of enemies, and the Lord had said, “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm,” and therefore he had been secure in the midst of a thousand ills; but now he must fall by the hand of the last enemy and feel the great avenger’s sword.  It was appointed to the patriarch to die as meaner men must do.

From the wording of the text, it appears very clearly that Israel did not dispute the irrevocable decree, nor did his soul murmur against it. He had long before learned that few and evil were his days, and now that they came to an end, he joyfully accepted their conclusion.  He was not like a bullock dragged to the slaughter, but he gathered up his feet by a voluntary act of submission, and then, bowing his head, he yielded up the ghost; like a man weary with a long day’s toil, he was glad to rest, and therefore most cheerfully he attended to the great Father’s summons, and was peacefully gathered unto his people and his God.  As this is to be our lot by-and-by, we may contemplate in our meditations the departure of this mighty man and ask that our death may be like his that we also may finish our course with joy.  May we

“So live, that when our summons comes to join

The innumerable caravan that moves

To that mysterious realm, where each shall take

His place appointed by the just decree,

That thou, sustained and soothed, approach thy grave

Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch

Around him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.”

It is remarkable, my brethren, that the Holy Spirit has given us very few death-bed scenes in the book of God.  We have very few in the Old Testament; fewer still in the New, and I take it that the reason may be because the Holy Ghost would have us take more account of how we live than how we die, for life is the main business.  He who learns to die daily while he lives will find it no difficulty to breathe out his soul for the last time into the hands of his faithful Creator.  If we fight well the battle, we may rest assured of the victory.  If, enlisted under the banner of truth, resting in Jesus Christ, we finish our fight and keep the faith, we need not fear but that our entering into rest will be a blessed one.  Peradventure, the Holy Spirit would also show us that it is not so much to our profit to have our feelings harrowed by recitals of dying experiences.  Certain preachers in their sermons are very fond of extorting tears from their hearers by dragging before them the funerals of friends painting the death-bed scenes of parents, unwrapping the winding sheets of little infants, and exhibiting the skeletons of buried relatives.  This may be of some avail: preachers may have used these scenes to work through the natural affections to something deeper, but this is not the way the Holy Spirit has selected.  If the teachers of the gospel will study the Holy Spirit’s model, they will learn that we are to strike at conscience rather than at the natural affections, and teach men holy principles rather than remind them of their sorrows.  From the great reticence of the Holy Spirit in this matter, I learn that he would not have us be abundant to superfluity in such things.  Moreover, it may be suggested that the Holy Ghost has given us few of these death-bed scenes on paper because, being present with us, he presents them to us frequently in actual flesh and blood, visible to our eyes and audible to our ears. We are to look upon the presence of the Holy Spirit in the witness of dying men as in some sense the continuance of the Holy Spirit’s instructive authorship.  He has finished yonder book written with paper and ink, but he is writing fresh stanzas to the glory of God in the deaths of departing saints, who one by one are taken from the evil to come singing the Lord’s praises as they depart.  If this be not so, at any rate, it is true that we have abundant testimonies to the faithfulness of God in the departure of those who, having lived by faith on earth, are now gone to see with their own eyes the King in his beauty, and the land which is very far off.

During the past week, as most of you know, God has seen fit to remove from the midst of his church a great man, and a prince in Israel, a man greatly beloved, one of the excellent of the earth, an amiable, zealous, talented, godly, and valiant man, esteemed personally wherever he was known, and honored officially wherever his ministry was enjoyed.  Dr. James Hamilton was one of the most fragrant flowers in the Lord’s garden of sweet flowers to which the Beloved so often comes to gather lilies.  He was not a Boanerges – not after the quality of Knox and Luther, but a Barnabas, a son of consolation, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost.  He had a singular elegance and refinement of style, in which metaphors the most novel and charming abounded, like golden grains in Africa’s sunny fountains; in his utterances he gave forth a pleasant sound, as of one that playeth well upon a goodly instrument: he was always musical with harmony of poetic illustration, but always musical with the notes of Christ, always sweet with the perfume of the atoning blood.  He was a cedar in our Lebanon-alas!  The axe has laid low his glories: he was a gem of purest ray serene, but he shines no longer in the coronet of the church below.  He was a nursing-father to full many of the Lord’s little one’s, and now we mourn because they lack his help: may they find in God’s Spirit an abundant supply of all-sufficient grace.  Well, he is gone from us and, while men are sad, there is joy beyond the skies; the loss of earth is the gain of heaven, and if the church has somewhat less below, she has more above.  I think I see him at this moment borne upward to his final resting place as a stone squared and polished to be built in the wall of the Temple of the New Jerusalem: hear ye not the shouts of “Grace, grace unto it?”  There is a fresh jewel this moment in the Redeemer’s crown; heaven is lustrous with the beauty of another blood-washed robe; another voice is added to the everlasting song, another shout to the hallelujahs of those who feast at the eternal banquet.  The church has lost nothing – she has only seen one of her valiant captains pass through the flood to join the triumphal band upon the other side; but as surely as the church is one, she loses none of her members – as certainly as it is the same church triumphant and militant, so certain is it that Christ loseth none of his people, and the church really none of her strength by death.  The decease of our friend James Hamilton, in connection with another circumstance of a different character which has happened to me this week, led my meditations very much to saintly death-beds, and I have therefore fastened upon this occasion to talk with God’s people concerning their passage out of this world unto the Father.  “Tis greatly wise,” says the poet, “to talk with our last hours.”  Sacred prudence bids us be familiar with the winding-sheet and the grave which must soon be our most intimate acquaintances.  Let us sojourn awhile upon the borders of the land unknown to be sobered at least, if not sanctified.

First, let us consider the departure of great saints and of God’s ministers in particular – what do these teach us?  Secondly, the various modes of their departure – what do these teach us also?

I. First, THE DEPARTURES OF GOD’S SAINTS, AND ESPECIALLY OF HIS MINISTERS – WHAT ARE THEIR LESSONS?

The first that lies upon the surface is this: “Be ye also ready for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.” When in the forest there is heard the crash of a falling oak, it is a sign that the woodsman is abroad, and every tree in the whole company may tremble lest soon the sharp edge of the axe should find it out.  We are all mortal, and the death of one should remind us that death lurks hard by us all. I trust we do not, by often hearing of death, become callous to it.  May we never be like the birds in the steeple, which can build their nests when the bells are ringing, and sleep quietly when the merry marriage or solemn funeral peals are startling the air.  May we regard death as the most solemn of all events and be sobered by its approach. In the old wars of the Danish kings, there is a legend that, when, Harold was contending with his brother Harlequin, an arrow was seen flying in the air, quivering as if it scarcely knew its way, and was searching for its victim; then on a sudden it pierced the leader’s forehead.  A little imagination may picture us as being in the same position as the Danish lordling: the arrow of death is flying for awhile above us, but its descent is sure and its wound is fatal.  It ill behooves us to laugh and sport while life hangs on a thread.  The sword is out of its scabbard – let us not trifle; it is furbished, and the edge sparkles with fearful sharpness – let us prepare ourselves to meet it.  He who does not prepare for death is more than an ordinary fool, he is a madman.  When the voice of God is calling to us through the departures of others, if we do not listen to the warning, we may expect him to follow the rejected word of counsel with a blow of wrath; for he often strikes down right terribly those who would not listen to his reproving messages.

Be ready, minister, see to it that thy church be in good order, for the grave shall soon be dug for thee; be ready, parent, see that your children are brought up in the fear of God, for they must soon be orphans; be ready, men of business, you that are busy in the world; see that your affairs are correct; see that you serve God with all your heart; for the days of your terrestrial service will soon be ended and you will be called to give account for the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or whether they be evil.  O may we all prepare for the tribunal of the great King with a care which shall be rewarded with the commendation, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Secondly, the deaths of righteous men should teach us their value. According to the old saying, we never know the value of things till we lose them.  I am sure it is so with holy men.  Let me urge young people here to prize their aged godly parents, to treat them kindly, to make their last days happy because they cannot expect to have them long on earth to receive their tokens of affectionate gratitude.  Those who have Christian parents little know how great is the privilege they enjoy until they become parents themselves and learn the cares and sorrows of the mother’s office and the father’s state.  Are any of you favored with friends who have given you instruction in the faith, whose goodly words and holy examples have helped you on the way to heaven?  Thank God much for such good company; be much with them, treasure up the pearls which drop from their lips.  They must soon be gone – value them today as you will do when they are departed.  Are you privileged with an earnest, faithful, ministry?  Do you hear the gospel lovingly and honestly proclaimed?  Then bless God every day of your life for that faithful ministry.  All ministry is not such – all people are not in such a case.  Be grateful, then, and show your gratitude by giving earnest heed to the things that are spoken, lest by any means you should let them slip, and so should miss the great salvation through want of earnestness.  I do beseech you, dear friends, value the Christian ministry.  I ask no honor for men, but I do ask honor for the office which Paul said he would magnify; and wherever you see that God has sent an ambassador, and that his ambassador is praying you in Christ’s stead to be reconciled to God – turn not away from his entreaties, close not your ear to his persuasions, but honor the man’s office, pay homage to the King who sent him, by yielding up your heart in obedience to the word which is delivered to you.

Furthermore, I think the departures of great saints and those who have been eminent, teach us to pray earnestly to God to send us more of such – a lesson which, I am quite certain, needs to be inculcated often.  There is sadly little prayer in the church for the rising ministry.  You pray for those who are your pastors, and rightly so.  “Brethren, pray for us,” you cannot do us a better favor.  But there is so little prayer that God would raise up ministers!  Know ye not that, as surely as the blood of Christ bought the redemption of his people, as surely as the resurrection of Christ was for the justification of the saints, so surely the ascension of Christ was for the distribution of ministry among the sons of men?  Know ye not the passage, “He ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men; and he gave [these were the gifts] some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers?”  Now, you plead the precious blood when you would obtain pardon; you plead the resurrection, and you receive justification; but how seldom do you plead the ascension, so as to obtain a faithful ministry?  Parts of Christendom are becoming terribly deficient in ministry.  I have been told, and I have read in the literature of America, that in many parts of the United States, one-third of the churches are devoid of pastors; believers are struggling and striving after ministers, but cannot find them.  There must have been in that case a failure in the prayer, “Lord, send forth laborers into the harvest.”  And I should not at all wonder if such a case should happen to England for I see a dreadful lethargy in the hearts of many of God’s people as to the work of praying for preachers, and assisting in training them.

In olden times, if any men showed the slightest ability in speech, the saints sought such out and tried to instruct them, as Aquila and Priscilla when they found Apollos, a man eloquent and mighty in the Scriptures, they took him and instructed him further; and Paul, when he saw that Timothy was an apt scholar, instructed him further in the faith; while our blessed Lord not only preached the gospel, but founded a college in which he had twelve students (and more than that), who constantly went about with him, learning from his example and ministry how themselves to become teachers of others.

But now, forsooth, there are wiseacres who talk about “man-made ministers,” and despise all attempts to assist our youth to become qualified in the testimony of the truth.  The Lord teach them reason and give them common sense, but let no Christian give one single particle of heeding to their prattling.  Let it be our earnest endeavor, both by prayer and every other means, to seek to obtain from God a succession of earnest, faithful, qualified ministers, for, say what you will, it is upon the ministry that God shall send you that much of the success of the church must depend.  Those sects which pretend to do without a special ministry (for it is usually a transparent pretense), may prosper for a little while: their setting up every disciple to be a teacher suits the natural pride of the human heart, and Christian men, being grossly deceived, yield to it for a little while.  But not one single one of these communities can endure throughout a generation in vigorous existence.  With a spasm of excitement, and a flush of zeal, they grow awhile, fattening upon those whom they can decoy from other churches, and then they dwindle away to nothing, or divide into little knots, each one agreed in hating the other most fervently.  What is everybody’s business is nobody’s business; and since there is no man set to see after souls, no man does see after them; and the whole flock become scattered for want of a shepherd, who, in God’s hand, might have kept them together.  Faithful servants of the living God, as ye prize the church and its ordinances, strive with God that as he takes one by one of his servants away, he would send us others, that the church may never lack her standard-bearers, and the flock of God never be destitute of pastors after God’s own heart.  Pray ye seven times each day that God may keep alive the name and glory of Christ in the land by faithful teachers of the truth.

Yet there is a valuable truth on the other side.  We desire always to look at both sides of a question.  The taking away of eminent saints from among us should teach us to depend more upon God, and less upon human instrumentality.  I was reading, yesterday, the dying prayer of Oliver Cromwell, and one sentence in that man of God’s last breathings pleased me exceedingly.  It was to this effect, I think, I have copied out the words: “Teach those who look too much on thy instruments to depend more upon thyself.”  Brave old Oliver was a man upon whom the whole nation rested; he could say with David, “The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved: I bear up the pillars of it.”  In a time of terrible anarchy, when men had become fierce with fanatical prophesyings, and wild with political passions, Oliver Cromwell’s iron hand restored peace, and kept a tumultuous land in order; and now, when he would be worst missed, and could very ill be spared, he must depart, and this is his prayer, “Teach them to depend less upon thy instrument, and more upon thyself.”  You may have observed that frequently when a man is in the zenith of his power, and people have said, “That is the man who of all others we could least afford to lose,” that very man has been taken away, that special light has been quenched, that particular pillar has been removed.  The Lord would have all the glory given unto his own name.  He has said it, said it often in voice of thunder, but men will not hear it, “All power belongeth unto God.”  He will honor and bless an instrumentality, for that is his mode of working, but he will not divide the crown with the most honored agency; he will have all the glory redound unto himself.  By frequently breaking up his battle axes and weapons of war, he teaches his church that he can fight with his own bare arm and win the victory to himself without an instrument of warfare.

Coming back, however, to the old thought: do you not think that the departure of eminent saints should teach each one of us to work with more earnestness and perseverance while we are spared? One soldier the less in the battle, my brethren: then you must fill up the vacancy; you who stand next in the ranks must close up, shoulder to shoulder, that there be no gap.  Here is one servant the less in the house: the other servants must do the more work.  It is but natural for us so to argue because we wish the Master’s work to be done, and it will not be done without hands.  If we do not preach the gospel, angels will not preach it.  If we do not win souls for God, we must not expect cherubim and seraphim to engage in this divine employment.  Somebody must do it!  And since we would have all done that can be done, you and I must do the more when helpers are removed.  There is a hand the less: we must stretch out our hands the oftener to execute the sacred work.  Behold, a reaper falls in the corner of the field, and all the harvest must be gathered in before the season is past!  Brethren, sharpen your sickles, gather up your strength, toil more hours in the day, throw more strength into your toil; above all, pray for a greater blessing upon what is done. If there be less bread, then we must have a larger benediction to multiply it, to make it sufficient for the tens of thousands.  If there be fewer laborers, we must ask the Master to give those laborers the more strength that the work may still be done, and nothing be marred for want of effort.

I wish I had the strength this morning, mental and physical combined, to urge this upon you as I have striven to urge it upon myself.  I have sought before the Lord that he would teach me to live an active, earnest, laborious, heavenly life. Very few of us understand what life is.  Baxter at Kidderminster, from morning to night spending and being spent for the Master’s service; Whitfield, all over England and America, toiling and laboring without the thought of rest, instant in season and out of season; these are the men we should emulate.  But, alas! we do a little, and then we fold our hands with ridiculous self-satisfaction.  Now and then we arouse ourselves to something like zeal, and then we fall back into a state of carelessness.  It ought not so to be; but, with diligence and perseverance, we ought to live as having death in view and the near approach of the time when the night cometh wherein no man can work.  I leave these lessons with you: I cannot enforce them; the Holy Spirit can.

II. Come with me to the second part of my discourse.  Much may be learned from the MODES OF DEPARTURE of God’s servants.

All believers fall asleep in Jesus, and in him they are all saved.  The precious blood hath washed them, the hand of Christ keeps them, the earnest of the Spirit is with them, and the everlasting gates are opened to receive them.  But, unto them all, there is not ministered the same abundant entrance into the kingdom neither do all their faces shine with those gleams of glory which rest upon the highly favored.

To some of God’s own children the dying bed is a Bochim, a place of weeping.  It is melancholy when such is the case, and yet it is often so with those who have been negligent servants: they are saved, but so as by fire: they struggle into the port of peace, but their entrance is like that of a weather-beaten vessel which has barely escaped the storm and enters into harbor so terribly leaking as to be ready to founder, without her cargo (for she has thrown that overboard to escape the waves), sails rent to ribands, masts gone by the board, barely able to keep afloat.

Thousands enter into glory as Paul and his companions in peril landed at Melita, some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship; all come safe to land, but it is as it were by the skin of their teeth.  In the dying beds of some believers, that text is sadly illustrated, “If the righteous scarcely be saved.”  We have known them lying on the brink of eternity, bemoaning themselves after this fashion: “God has forgiven me, but how can I forgive myself?  I am saved; but, oh! that I had made a profession of religion more plainly and boldly!  Would God that I had not been so dilatory in serving my Master! I have prayed so little, given so little, done so little, I am a most unprofitable servant.  Woe is me, for I have been busy here and there, and have forgotten my life’s work; I have made money, but have won no jewels for Christ; I have taken care of my family, but alas!  I have done next to nothing for the cause of Christ.  I shall have no means of serving the cause of God when I enter heaven; I cannot then succor the poor, feed the hungry, or clothe the naked, or send the gospel to the ignorant.  I might have done much when I was in health and strength, but now I can do little or nothing for I am weak, and languishing upon this bed.  Would to God that my Sabbaths had profited me more and that I had walked more in nearness to God.”  Such dolorous heart-breaking confessions have we heard, varied occasionally by the lament, “Would to God I had brought up my children better for now I am obliged to say with David, ‘My house is not so with God,’ though I know that he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure.”  Many a dying pillow has been wet with the penitential tears of saints who have then fully seen their formerly unobserved shortcomings and failures and laxities in the family, in the business, in the church, and in the world.

Brethren, it is beautiful to see the repentance of a dying saint: travel far as you may, you will not readily behold a more comely spectacle.  I have seen it, and have breathed the prayer, “Lord, give me a humble and contrite spirit like that which I see before me, and help me now to feel the like brokenness of heart.”  Yet at the sight of such instances, it has struck me that though the fruit was scarcely seasonable, it must be acceptable to God for he never rejects repentance anywhere, but yet a brighter state of soul would have glorified him more in dying moments.  We regret to see mourning of soul as the most conspicuous feature in a departing brother; we desire to see joy and confidence clearly manifested at the last.  We are glad to see contrition anywhere because it is evermore a lovely work of the Spirit; but we should have preferred to see it sooner, when regrets would not have been unavailing, when the repentance would have brought forth practical fruit in a change of life.  I say, thank God if there be a deep repentance on the dying bed, but this is not the highest or best thing: to enter into life halt or maimed is not the grandest or most comely mode of departing out of this life into another.  To die in the dark with Jesus is safe, but to have light at the last is better.

We remember reading of a popular minister and the reading of it has struck through out heart, who, when he was dying, said to those about him, “I die in great bitterness of mind for I have been one of the most admired trees in God’s vineyard, and yet when I look back upon my past life, I fear I have brought forth many blossoms and many leaves, but very little fruit unto God’s glory.”  Ah! it will go hard with us, ministers, if we have to sorrow thus in our last hours.  You Sunday-school teachers, and other beloved laborers for Christ, I trust you will not have to cry at the last, “Our harvest is past and our summer is ended, and none of our children are saved.  Oh, that we had talked to our boys and girls more solemnly!  Oh, that we had entreated them with tears to flee from the wrath to come!”  I pray God that such may not be your dying lamentations, but that each one of us may live for God at the rate which eternity will justify.  When an old painter was taking much pains with his painting, pausing over every tint and touch, they asked him why he wrought so carefully.  He answered.  “I paint for eternity.”  So let us take good heed in all that we do for God, not offering to him that which costs us nothing, nor going out to his service at random, without prayer for his blessing and fitness for his work: let us take earnest heed to ourselves that we live for eternity, for so shall we wish to have lived when we come to die.

It has not unfrequently occurred that the dying scene has been to the Lord’s departing champions a battle, not perhaps by reason of any slips or shortcomings – far from it.  In some cases, the conflict appeared to arise by very reason of their valor in the Lord’s service.  Who among us would assert that Martin Luther failed to live up to the light and knowledge which he had received?  So far as he knew the truth, I believe he most diligently followed it.  Beyond most men he was true to conscience; he knew comparatively little of the truth, but what he did know he maintained with all his heart and soul and strength.  And yet it is exceedingly painful to read the record of Luther’s last few days.  Darkness was round about him; thick clouds and tempest enveloped his soul.  At the last the sky cleared, but it was very evident that among all the grim battles in which that mighty German fought and conquered, probably the most tremendous conflict of his life was at its close.  Can we not guess the reason?  Was it not because the devil knew him to be his worst enemy then upon the earth, and therefore hating him with the utmost power of infernal hate, and feeling that this was his last opportunity for assaulting him, he gathered up all his diabolical powers and came in against him like a flood, thinking that mayhap he might at the last overcome the stout heart and cow the valiant spirit!  Only by divine assistance did Luther win the victory, but win it he did.  Is this form of departure to be altogether deprecated?  I think not.  It is to be dreaded in some aspects, though not in others for is it not a noble thing for the knight of the cross to die in harness?   A blessed thing for the Christian soldier to proceed at once from the battle field to his eternal rest?

The like was the case with John Knox, the Scottish Luther, whose bold spirit feared the face of no man.  He was beset with a temptation which seemed a strange one to trouble him, namely, a temptation to self-righteousness.  He had always denounced all trust in works, and yet that error assaulted him at last, and he had a long and bitter conflict, though it ended in joyful victory.  It has been quaintly said that, “Sometimes God puts his children to bed in the dark.”  When our heavenly Father sends the rider upon the pale horse to fetch us home from the school of this life’s tribulation, he comes riding down the street making such a clangor with his horse hoofs that we are alarmed until we come to know that he is sent by our Father, and then we are glad.  God permits the Jordan to overflow its banks when some of his best children are passing through for he designs to magnify his grace in the last trial of their faith, and thus to show to men and angels and devils who are looking on, how he can triumph in his servants when flesh and heart are failing.

Beloved, I think these instances are rare compared with others which I am now to mention.  To many saints their departure has been a peaceful entrance into the fair haven of repose.  The very weakest of God’s servants have frequently been happiest in their departing moments.  John Bunyan, who had observed this fact in the description of Mr. Feeble mind’s passage of the river, “Here also I took notice of what was very remarkable; the water of that river was lower at this time than ever I saw it all my life.  So he went over at last not much above wetshod.”  Heaven’s mercy tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, and gives to babes no battle because they have no strength for it: the lambs calmly rest on the bosom of Jesus, and breathe out their lives in the Shepherd’s arms.  What encouragement this ought to be to you who are the tender ones among us!  What cheering tidings for you who are weak in faith!  Like Mr. Ready-to-halt, you shall cry, “Now, I shall have no more need of these crutches, since yonder are chariots and horses for me to ride on.”  There died a few weeks ago one who may be known to some of you by name, Mr. James Upton, late pastor of the church in Cotton Street.  For more than twenty-five years laid aside from the ministry by a most terrible depression of spirit which caused him one long unbroken night of soul.  He could not engage in any form of devotional exercise, so frightfully was he depressed in spirit, doubtless by some form of mental derangement; but during the last few hours of his life, when he was speechless, and could therefore give no verbal testimony, the gloom which had always been manifested in his countenance was removed, and he was evidently at the last enjoying profound peace of mind.  If God does not take away melancholy from the believer till the last, he will at the last.  If he suffers his people to live for years in winter, their summer shall begin at the last hour.  When the death damp is heaviest, then shall the light burn the brightest and, as the body decays and weakens, the soul shall arise in her strength.

Many of the saints have gone farther than this, for their death-beds have been pulpits.  Not to all of them was it so given, for Mr. Whitfield desired to bear a dying testimony for Christ, but did not do so.  Somebody remarked to him, “You have borne so many living testimonies to so many thousands that your Master wants no dying testimony of you.”  If you have read Brainerd’s Journal, what wonderful things he speaks of there, when all his last thoughts were delightfully fixed upon eternity and the world to come!  Thus he wrote in his diary, “Oh! how sweet were the thoughts of death to me at this time!  Oh! how I longed to be with Christ, to be employed in the glorious work of angels, and with an angel’s freedom, vigor, and delight.”  At another time, he wrote, “Tis sweet to me to think of eternity; but oh! what shall I say to the eternity of the wicked!  I cannot mention it or think of it.  The thought is too dreadful!”  His thoughts, however, were all taken up with the joyful eternity belonging to believers into which he entered with holy triumph.

Then there was that dear man of God, Mr. Payson.  His last expressions were weighty sermons.  He says, “I suppose, speaking within bounds, I have suffered twenty times as much as any martyr that was ever burnt at the stake through the painfulness of my disease, and yet frequently, day after day, my joy in God has so abounded as to render my sufferings not only tolerable but welcome.”  When Mr. Matthew Henry was dying, a friend came to him, and he said, “You have been used to take notice of the sayings of dying men: this is mine, ‘A life spent in the service of God and in communion with him is the most pleasant life that any one can live in the world.’”  Well spoken!  Our pulpits often lack force and power; men suppose that we speak but out of form and custom, but they do not suspect dying men of hypocrisy, nor think that they are driving a trade and following a profession.

Hence the witness of dying saints has often become powerful to those who have stood around their couch: careless hearts have been impressed, slumbering consciences have been awakened, and children of God quickened to greater diligence by what they have heard.  Brethren, do you never find dying beds become thrones of judgment?  Have you never seen the hoary saint stayed upon the pillows, prophesying like a seer concerning the things of this world and of the world to come?  Have you never heard him deliver sentences as weighty as the verdict of a judge?  “What,” says he, “what are all these earthly things to me now, now that I am about to leave them?  They are all bubbles and emptinesses.  Solomon in his life could not moralize with such force as holy men do in their deaths and then, as they point the linger to eternity, and tell of worlds to come, and of the need of being prepared for the tremendous day of the great assize, they appear as if, clothed in their white raiment, they were performing a rehearsal of the last dread judgment.  Many who care not for the voice of the ministry, nor even for the witness of God’s written word, have felt the power of the speeches of men standing on the borders of eternity.

And, brethren, to bring this to a close, lest I should weary you, we have known not unfrequent cases (nay, commonly this is the case), when the dying bed has become a Pisgah from the top of which the saint has viewed his inheritance while anon his couch has glowed on a sudden into the chariot of Amminadib, a flaming chariot such as that in which Elias was borne away to dwell with God.  Saints have frequently been in such triumphant conditions of mind, that rapture and ecstasy are the only fit words in which to describe their state. “If this be dying,” said one, “it is worthwhile living for the mere sake of dying.”  Dr. Payson, in his dying hours, wrote to his sister, “Were I to adopt the figurative language of Bunyan, I should date this letter from the land of Beulah, of which I have been for some weeks a happy inhabitant.  The celestial city is full in my view.  Its glories beam upon me, its odors are wafted to me, its sounds strike upon my ears, and its spirit is breathed into my heart.  Nothing separates me from it but the river of death, which now appears but as an insignificant rill that may be crossed at a single step whenever God shall give permission.  The Sun of Righteousness has gradually been drawing nearer and nearer, appearing larger and brighter as he approached; and now he fills the whole hemisphere, pouring forth a flood of glory, in which I seem to float as an insect in the beams of the sun; exulting, yet almost trembling, while I gaze on this excessive brightness, and wondering, with unutterable wonder, that God should deign thus to shine upon a sinful worm.  A single heart and a single tongue seem altogether inadequate to my wants: I want a whole heart for every separate emotion, and a whole tongue to express that emotion.”

It has been sometimes said these excitements are produced by delirium or caused by drugs, yet there are multitudes of clear cases in which men have had no delirium, and have been altogether untouched by drugs, as in the case of Halyburton, who said, “I know that a great deal from a dying man will go for canting and raving; but I bless God: he has kept the judgment I had, that I have been able to reflect with composure on his dealings with me.  I am sober and composed, if ever I was so.  You may believe a man venturing on eternity.  I have weighed eternity this last night – I have looked on death as stripped of all things pleasant to nature; and under the view of all these, I have found that in the way of God that gave satisfaction, a rational satisfaction, that makes me rejoice.”  Halyburton, indeed, broke forth into such ecstatic expressions, that I fear to quote them, lest I should spoil them; among his words were these, “If ever I was distinct in my judgment and memory in my life, it is since he laid his hands upon me.  My bones are riving through my skin, and yet all my bones are praising him.  O death, where is thy sting?  O grave, where is thy victory?  I am now a witness for Christ, and for the reality of religion. I have peace in the midst of pain; and oh! how much of that I have had for a time past!  My peace has been like a river – not a discomposed thought.  Strange that this body is going away to corruption, and yet my intellectuals are so lively that I cannot say there is the least alteration, the least decay of judgment or memory; such vigorous actings of my spirit towards God and things that are not seen.”  When drawing near his end, one remarked to him, “Blessed are they that die in the Lord.”  He replied, “When I fall so low that I cannot speak, I’ll show you a sign of triumph if I am able.”  And when he could no longer speak, he lifted up his hands, clapped them as in token of victory, and in a little while departed to the land where the weary are at rest.

Oh, it is grand to die thus, to get heaven here below in foretastes; to partake of dainty dishes brought from off the tables of immortals, to stay our souls while lingering here!  This shall be your portion, and this shall be my portion, if we be faithful unto death, continuing diligent in service.  I have already told you: if we believe in Christ, we shall die safely.  But we may not necessarily die in this triumph: this blessing is given to those who are faithful, earnest and diligent, a special reward which God reserveth to some men who, like Daniel, are greatly beloved, or who, like John, are indulged with special visions of the New Jerusalem before entering upon the scene!  Brethren, as I close my sermon I can but utter the present yearning of my ardent spirit —

Oh, if my Lord would come and meet,

My soul should stretch her wings in haste,

Fly fearless through death’s iron gate,

Nor feel the terrors as she passed.

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“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” — Psalm 116:15

David sought deliverance from imminent peril, and he felt sure of obtaining it; for being a servant of the Lord he knew that his life was too precious in the sight of God for it to be lightly brought to an end.  It should be a source of consolation to all tried saints that God will not deliver them over to the hands of their enemies.  It is not the will of their Father who is in heaven that one of his little ones should perish.  A shepherd who did not care for his sheep might suffer the wolf to devour it, but he who prizes it highly will put his own life in jeopardy to pluck the defenseless one from between the monster’s jaws.

The text informs us that the deaths of God’s saints are precious to him.  How different, then, is the estimate of human life which God forms from that which has ruled the minds of great warriors and mighty conquerors.  Had Napoleon spoken forth his mind about the lives of men in the day of battle, he would have likened them to so much water spilt upon the ground.  To win a victory or subdue a province, it mattered not though he strewed the ground with corpses thick as autumn leaves, nor did it signify though in every village orphans and widows wailed the loss of sires and husbands.  What were the deaths of conscript peasants when compared with the fame of the Emperor?  So long as Austria was humbled or Russia invaded, little cared the imperial Corsican though half the race had perished.  Not thus is it with the King of kings; he spares the poor and needy and saves the souls of the needy, and precious shall their blood be in his sight.  Our glorious Leader never squanders the lives of his soldiers; he values the church militant beyond all price; and though he permits his saints to lay down their lives for his sake, yet is not one life spent in vain or unnecessarily expended.

How different also is the Lord’s estimate from that of persecutors! They have hounded the saints to death, considering that they did God service.  They have thought no more of burning martyrs than destroying noxious insects, and massacres of believers have been to them as the slaying of wild beasts.  Did they not strike a medal to celebrate the massacre of the Huguenots in France?   And did not the infallible Pope himself consider it to be a business for which to offer Te Deums to God?  What if murder made the streets of Paris run with blood?  The slaughtered ones were only Protestants, and the world thought itself well rid of them.  Foxes and wolves, and Protestants were best exterminated.  As for so-called Anabaptists, they were counted worse than vipers, and to crush them utterly was reckoned to be salutary Christian discipline.  The enemies of the church of God have hunted the saints as if they were beasts of the chase.  They have let loose upon them the dogs of war and the hell-hounds of the Inquisition, as if they were not fit to live.  “Away with such a fellow from the earth” has been the general cry of persecutors against the men of whom the world was not worthy.  But, precious is their blood in his sight. Though they have been cast to the beasts in the amphitheatre, or dragged to death by wild horses, or murdered in dungeons, or slaughtered amongst the snows of the Alps, or made to fatten Smithfield with their gore, precious has their blood been, and still is it in his sight, who will avenge his own elect when the day shall come for his patience to have had her perfect work and for his justice to begin her dread assize.

The text also corrects another estimate, namely, our own. We love the people of God, they are exceedingly precious to us, and, therefore, we are too apt to look upon their deaths as a very grievous loss.  We would never let them die at all if we could help it.  If it were in our power to confer immortality upon our beloved Christian brethren and sisters, we should surely do it, and to their injury we should detain them here, in this wilderness, depriving them of a speedy entrance into their inheritance on the other side the river.  It would be cruel to them, but I fear we should often be guilty of it.  We should hold them here a little longer, and a little longer yet, finding it hard to relinquish our grasp.  The departures of the saints cause us many a pang.  We fret, alas! also, we even repine and murmur.  We count that we are the poorer because of the eternal enriching of those beloved ones who have gone over to the majority and entered into their rest.  Be it known that while we are sorrowing Christ is rejoicing.  His prayer is, “Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am,” and in the advent of every one of his own people to the skies he sees an answer to that prayer, and is, therefore, glad.  He beholds in every perfected one another portion of the reward for the travail of his soul, and he is satisfied in it.  We are grieving here, but he is rejoicing there. Dolorous are their deaths in our sight, but precious are their deaths in his sight.  We hang up the mournful escutcheon and sit us down to mourn our full, and yet, meanwhile, the bells of heaven are ringing for “the bridal feast above,” the streamers are floating joyously in every heavenly street, and the celestial world keeps holiday because another heir of heaven has entered upon his heritage.

May this correct our grief.  Tears are permitted to us, but they must glisten in the light of faith and hope.  Jesus wept, but Jesus never repined.  We, too, may weep, but not as those who are without hope, nor yet as though forgetful that there is greater cause for joy than for sorrow in the departure of our brethren.

I. Coming now to the instructive text before us, we shall remark, in the first place, that THE STATEMENT HERE MADE IMPLIES A VIEW OF DEATH OF A PECULIAR KIND. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”

Death in itself cannot be precious; it is terrible. It cannot be a precious thing to God to see the noblest works of his hand torn in pieces, his skillful embroidery in the human body rent, defiled, and given over to decay.  Death in itself cannot be a theme for rejoicing with God.  But death in the case of believers is another matter.  To them, it is not death to die; it is a departure out of this world unto the Father, a being unclothed that we may be clothed upon, a falling asleep, an entrance into the Kingdom.  To the saint death is by no means such a thing as happens unto the unregenerate.

And, observe wherein this change lies.  It lies mainly in the fact that death is no more the penalty for sin upon the believer.  One great cardinal truth of the gospel is that the sins of believers were laid upon Christ and were punished upon Christ, and that, consequently, no sin is imputed to the believer, neither can any penalty be visited upon him.  His sin was punished in his substitute.  The righteous wrath of God has altogether ceased towards those for whom Christ died.  It could not be consistent with justice that the death penalty should be executed upon Christ, and then should be again visited upon those for whom Christ was a substitute.

Death, then, does not come to me as a believer because I deserve it and must be punished by it.  It comes so to the ungodly.  It is upon them a fit visitation for their iniquities, the beginning of an unending death, which shall be their perpetual portion.  To the saints the sting of death is gone, and the victory of the grave is removed; it is no more a penalty but a privilege to die.  What if I say it is a covenant blessing?  So Paul esteemed it, for when he said “All things are yours, things present or things to come,” he added, “or life, or death, all are yours; and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s,” as if the believer’s death came to him amongst other good and precious things by the way of his being Christ’s, and Christ’s being God’s.  To fall asleep in Jesus is a blessing of the covenant; it is a grace to be asked for, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word.”  I would not miss it; if I might make my choice between living till Christ comes, so as to be changed only, and not to die, or of actually sleeping in the dust, I would prefer to die, for in this the believer who shall fall asleep will be the more closely conformed to Christ Jesus.  He will have passed into the sepulcher and slept in the tomb as his master did; he will know, as Jesus knows, what death pangs mean and what it is to gaze upon the invisible while the visible retreats into the distance.  Nay, let us die.  The Head has traversed the valley of death-shade, and let the members rejoice to follow.

“As the Lord their Savior rose,

So all his followers must.”

And, therefore, as the Lord the Savior slept, so let us sleep.  When we think of our Master in the tomb, our hearts say, “Let us go that we may die with him.”  We would not be divided from him in life or in death.  We are so wedded to him that we say, “Where thou goest, I will go, where thou diest, I will die, and with thee would I be buried, that with thee in the resurrection morning I may be partaker of the resurrection.”  Death, then, is so far changed in its aspect as it respects the saints that it is no longer a legal infliction, but it comes to us as a covenant blessing conforming us to Christ.

The statement of the text refutes the gloomy thought that death is a ceasing to be.  It is not the annihilation of a man, nor ought it ever to be regarded as such.  In all ages, there has fingered upon mankind the fear that to die may involve ceasing to be; and of all thoughts this is one of the most gloomy.  But, when God says that the death of a believer is precious to him, it is clear that no tinge of annihilation is in the idea, for where would be the preciousness of a believer ceasing to exist?  Oh, no, the thought is gone from us.  We know that to die is not to renounce existence; we understand that death is but a passage into a higher and a nobler existence.  The soul emancipated from all sinfulness passes the Jordan and is presented without fault before the throne of God.  No purgatorial fires are needed to cleanse her; the self-same day she leaves the body, she is with Christ in paradise, because she is fit to be there.  The body in death, it is true, undergoes decay, but even for that meaner part of our manhood there is no destruction.  Let us not malign the grave; it is no more a prison, but an inn, a halting place upon the road to resurrection.  As Esther bathed herself in spices that she might be fit for the embraces of the king, so is the body purged from its corruption that it may rise immortal.

“Corruption, earth, and worms

Shall but refine this flesh

Till my triumphant spirit comes

To put it on afresh.”

The body could not rise if it had not first died; it could not spring up like a fair flower unless it had first been sown.  If a grain of wheat fall not into the ground and die, how springeth it up again?  But the body is sown in dishonor that it may be raised in glory; it is sown in weakness that it may be raised in power; it is laid in the grave as a natural body, that it may arise therefrom by the infinite power of the Almighty a spiritual body, full of life, and glory, and majesty. Let this mortal body die, aye, let it molder into dust!  What more fit than earth to earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes?  Let the gold go into the fining pot, it will lose none of its preciousness; it will only be delivered from its dross.  Let the gem go to the lapidary’s house, for it shall glitter the more brightly in the royal crown in the day when the Lord shall make up his jewels.

Death, too, we may be sure from this statement, cannot be any serious detriment to the believer after all; it cannot be any serious loss to a saint to die. Looking upon the poor corpse, it does seem to be a catastrophe for death to have passed his cold hand across the brow, but it is not so, for the very death is precious; therefore, it is no calamity.  Death if rightly viewed is a blessing from the Lord’s hand.  A child once found a bird’s nest in which were eggs, which it looked upon as a great treasure.  It left them, and by-and-by, when a week or so had passed, went back again.  It returned to its mother grieving: “Mother,” said the child, “I had some beautiful eggs in this nest, and now they are destroyed; nothing is left but a few pieces of broken shell.  Pity me, mother, for my treasure is gone.”  But the mother said, “Child, here is no destruction; there were little birds within those eggs, and they have flown away and are singing now among the branches of the trees; the eggs are not wasted, child, but have answered their purpose.  It is better far as it is.”  So, when we look at our departed ones, we are apt to say, “And is this all thou hast left us?  Ruthless spoiler, are these ashes all?”  But faith whispers “No, the shell is broken, but amongst the birds of paradise, singing amid unwithering bowers, you shall find the spirits of your beloved ones; their true manhood is not here, but has ascended to its Father, God.”

It is not a loss to die; it is a gain, a lasting, a perpetual, an illimitable gain. The man is at one moment weak and cannot stir a finger; in an instant he is clothed with power.  Call ye not this a gain?  That brow is aching; it shall wear a crown within the next few tickings of the clock.  Is that no gain?  That hand is palsied; it shall at once wave the palm branch. Is that a loss?  The man is sick beyond physician’s power, but he shall be where the inhabitant is never sick.  Is that a loss?  When Baxter lay dying and his friends came to see him, almost the last word he said was in answer to the question, “Dear Mr. Baxter, how are you?”  “Almost well,” said he, and so it is.  Death cures; it is the best medicine, for they who die are not only almost well, but healed forever.  You will see, then, that the statement of our text implies that the aspect of death is altogether altered from that appearance in which men commonly behold it.  Death to the saints is not a penalty, it is not destruction, it is not even a loss.

II. But now, secondly, I want your earnest thought to a further consideration of the text. THE STATEMENT HERE MADE IS OF A MOST UNLIMITED KIND. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”

It is a broad statement, wide and comprehensive, and I want you to observe that there is no limit here as to whom. Provided that the dying one be a saint, his death is precious.  He may be the greatest in the church, he may be the least; he may be the boldest confessor, he may be the most timid trembler; but if a saint, his death is precious in God’s sight.  I can well conceive the truth of this in respect to martyrs; to see a man enduring torments, but refusing to deny his Lord; to behold him offered life and wealth if he will recant, but to hear him say, “I cannot and I will not draw back by the help of God;” to mark every nerve throbbing with anguish and every single member of his body torn with torment, and yet to see the man faithful to his God even to the close — why, this is a spectacle which God himself might well count precious.  The church embalms the memories of her martyrs wherever they die — precious in God’s sight must their deaths be.  The deaths, too, of those who work for Christ until at last weary nature gives out, when body and brain are both exhausted and the man can no longer continue in his beloved labor, but lays down his body and his charge together, never putting off harness until he puts off his flesh — methinks the deaths of such men must be precious in God’s sight.  But, not more so – mark that not more so than the departure of the patient sufferer, scarcely able to say a word, solitary and unknown, only able to serve God by submissively enduring pains which make night weary and day intolerable.  Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of the consumptive girl who gradually melts into heaven; the death of the pauper in the workhouse, without a friend, but uncomplainingly bearing God’s will, is as precious (not perhaps under some aspects), but as truly precious in the sight of the Lord as that of the most useful preacher of the word.  Precious to Jehovah is the death of the least in the ranks, as the death of those who rush to the front and bear the brunt of the battle well.  There are no distinctions in the text: if you be a saint, no one may know you, you may be too poor and too illiterate to be of much account in the world, you may die and pass away and no record may be among the sons of men, no stone set up over your lonely grave, but precious in the sight of the Lord in every case is the death of his saints.

There is no limit as to whom.  And, mark you, there is no limit at all as to when. It matters not at what age the saint dies, his death is precious to God.  Very delightful to those who observe them are the deathbed scenes of young children who have early been converted to God.  There is a peculiar charm about the pious prattler’s departing utterances.  He can hardly pronounce his words aright, but he seems illuminated from above, and talks of Jesus and his angels, and the harps of gold, and the better land, as if he had been there.  Some of you have had the privilege to carry in your bosoms some of those nurselings for the skies, unfledged angels sent here but for a little while and then caught away to heaven, that their mothers’ hearts might follow them and their fathers’ aspirations might pursue them.  I confess to a great liking for such books as “Janeway’s Token for Children,” where the deaths of many pious boys and girls are recorded with the holy sayings which they used.  The Lord sets a high value on his little ones and, therefore, frequently gathers them while they are like flowers in the bud.  When these favored children die, Jesus stands at their little cots, and, while he calls them away, he whispers, “Of such is the kingdom of heaven.”  Equally precious, however, are the deaths of those who depart in middle life.  These we usually regret most of all, because of the terrible blanks which they leave behind them.  What, shall the hero fall when the battle wants him most?  Shall the reaper be sent home and made to lay down his sickle just when the harvest is heaviest and the day requires every worker?  To us it seemeth strange, but to God it is precious.  Oh, could we lift the veil, could we understand what now we see not, we should perceive that it was better for the saints to die when they died than it would have been for them to have lived longer lives.  Though the widow mourns and the orphans are left penniless, it was good that the father fell asleep.  Though a loving church gathered round the hearse and mourned that their minister had been taken away in the fullness of his vigor, it was best that God should take him to himself.  Let us be persuaded of this, that no believer dies an untimely death.

In every consistent Christian’s case that promise is true, “With long life also will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation;” for long life is not to be reckoned by years as men count them.  He lives longest who lives best.  Many a man has crowded half a century into a single year.  God gives his people life, not as the clock ticks, but as he helps them to serve him; and he can make them to live much in a short space of time.  There are no untimely figs gathered into God’s basket; the great Master of the vineyard plucks the grapes when they are ripe and ready to be taken, and not before. Saintly deaths are precious in his sight.  And, dear brethren, if the Lord’s providence permits the saint to live to a good old age, then is his death precious too.  The decease which has lately occurred among us will abide in my memory as one of my choice treasures.

I say but little of it to-day, for on another Sabbath morning I may be able to tell you some of those choice things which our dear brother and venerated elder uttered which charmed and gladdened us all as we lingered about his bed.  You knew him; you knew what a man he was in life; he was just such a man in death.  But a day or so before he died, while he could scarcely draw his breath, he told me with a smile that it was the happiest day of his life.  As he was always wont to rejoice in God while he was here among us, so he was kept in the same blessed spirit even to the end.  “See,” said he, “what a blessed thing it is to be here.”  “Here!”  I said.  “What, on a dying bed?” “Yes,” said he, “for I am Christ’s, and Christ is mine; I am in him, and He is in me; what more would I have?  It is the happiest day of my life,” and again he smiled serenely.  It was all joy with him, all bliss with him.  Pain might rack him, or weakness might prostrate him, but ever did his spirit magnify the Lord and rejoice in God his Savior.  Yes, these ripe ones, like the fruits of autumn, fall willingly from off the tree of life when but a gentle breeze stirs the branches.  The deaths of these are precious unto God.  There is no limitation as to when.

And again, there is no limitation as to where.  Precious shall their deaths be in his sight, let them happen where they may.  Up in the lonely garret where there are none of the appliances of comfort, but all the marks of the deepest penury, up there where the dying work-girl or the crossing sweeper dies — there is a sight most precious unto God.  Or yonder, in the long corridor of the hospital, where many are too engrossed in their own griefs to be able to shed a tear of sympathy, there passes away a triumphant spirit, and precious is that death in God’s sight.  Alone, utterly alone in the dead of night, surprised, unable to call in a helper, saintly life often has passed away; but in that form also precious is the death in God’s sight.  Far away from home and kindred, wandering in the backwoods or on the prairie, the believer has died where there was none to call him brother; but it mattered not, his death was precious in the sight of the Lord.  Or, a bullet has brought the missive from the throne which said, “Return and be with God,” and falling in the ditch to die amongst the wounded and the dead, with no onlooker but the silent stars and blushing moon, amidst the carnage the death of the believing soldier has been precious in the sight of Jehovah.  Ah, and run over in the street, or crushed, and bruised, and mangled in the railway accident, or stifled in the pit by the coal damp, or sinking amidst the gurgling waters of the ocean, or falling beneath the assassin’s knife, precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. They are everywhere in the sight of God when they die, and he looks upon them with a smile, for their death is precious to his heart.

There is no limit as to where and, dear brethren, there is no limit as to how.  “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”  Their deaths may happen suddenly; they may be alive and active, and in a moment fall down dead, but their death is precious.  I could never understand that prayer which is put into the prayer-book, that God would deliver us from sudden death.  Why, methinks, it is the most desirable death that a person could die, not to know you die at all, to have no fears, no shiverings on the brink, but to be busy in your Master’s service here, and suddenly to stand in the white robe before his throne in heaven, shutting the eye to the scenes below and opening it to the scenes above.  I know, if I might ask such a favor, I would covet to die as a dear brother in Christ died, who gave out this hymn from his pulpit —

“Father, I long, I faint to see

The place of thine abode

I’d leave thine earthly courts, and flee

Up to thy seat, my God.”

Just as he finished that line in the pulpit he bowed his head and his prayer was answered; he was immediately before the throne of God.  Is there anything in that to pray against?  It seems to us much to be desired; but at any rate, such a death as that is precious in God’s sight.  But if we linger long, if the tabernacle be taken down piece by piece, and the curtains be slowly folded up, and the tent pins gently put away, precious in the sight of the Lord is such a death as that.  Should we die by fierce disease, which shakes the strong man, or by gentle decline, which slowly saps and undermines, it matters not.  Should a sudden stroke take us and men call it a judgment, it is no judgment to the believer, for from him all judgments are past, and the true light of love shineth on him.  Die how he may, and where he may, and when he may, and let him be in what position he will when he dies, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”

III. And now, thirdly, we notice that THE STATEMENT OF THE TEXT MAY BE FULLY SUSTAINED AND ACCOUNTED FOR, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints,” is a most sober and truthful declaration.

First, because their persons were, and always will be, precious unto God. His saints!  Why, these are his elect; these are they upon whom his love was set before the mountains lifted their heads into the clouds; these are they whom he bought with precious blood, cheerfully laying down his life for their sakes; these are they whose names are borne on Jesus’ breast and engraved upon the palms of his hands; these are his children; these are members of his body; these are his bride, his spouse; he is married unto them: therefore, everything that concerns them must be precious.  Do I not look with interest upon the history of my child?  Do I not carefully observe everything that happens to my beloved spouse?  Where there is love the little becometh great and what would seem a matter of no concern in a stranger is gilded with great importance.  The Lord loves his people so intensely that the very hairs of their heads are numbered; his angels bear them up in their hands lest they dash their foot against a stone, and because they are the precious sons of Zion, comparable unto fine gold, therefore their deaths are precious unto the Lord.

Precious are the deaths of God’s saints next because precious graces are in death very frequently tested and as frequently revealed and perfected. How could I know faith to be true faith if it would not stand a trial?  The precious faith of God’s elect is proved to be such when it can bear the last ordeal of all; when the man can look grim death in the face and yet not be staggered through unbelief, when he can gaze across the gulf, so often veiled in cloud, and yet not fear that he shall be able to overleap it and land in the Savior’s arms.  Believe me, the faith which only plays with earthly joys and cannot endure the common trials of life will soon be dissipated by the solemn trial of death; but that which a man can die with, that is faith indeed.  Faith, moreover, brings with it, as its companions, an innumerable company of graces, amongst which chiefly are hope and love. Blessed is the man who can hope in God when heart and flesh are failing him, and can love the Lord even though he smite him with many pains, yea, even though he slay him.  The death of the body is a crucible for our graces, and much that we thought to be true grace disappears in the furnace heat; but God counts the trial of our faith much more precious than that of gold, and therefore he counts deathbeds precious in his sight.  Besides, how many graces are revealed in dying hours?  I have known plants of God’s right hand planting that had always been in the shade before and yet they have enjoyed sunlight at last; silent spirits that have laid their finger on their lips throughout their lives, but have taken them down and have declared their love to Jesus just when they were departing.  Like the swan, of whom the fable hath it, that it singeth never till it comes to its end, so many a child of God has begun to sing in his last hours; because he has done with the glooms of earth, he begins to sing here his swan song, intending to sing on forever and ever.  You cannot tell what is in a man to the fullness of him till he is tried to the full, and therefore the last trial, inasmuch as it strippeth off earth-born imperfections and develops in us that which is of God, and brings to the front the real and the true and throws to the back the superficial and the pretentious, is precious in God’s sight.

“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints,” for a third reason, because precious attributes are in dying moments gloriously illustrated. I refer now to the divine attributes. In life and in death, we prove the attribute of God’s righteousness: we find that he does not lie but is faithful to his word.  We learn the attribute of mercy: he is gentle and pitiful to us in the time of our weakness.  We prove the attribute of his immutability: we find him “the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

There is scarcely a single characteristic of the divine being which is not set out delightfully to the child of God and onlookers when the saint is departing.  And the same is true of the promises as well as the attributes.  Precious promises are illustrated upon dying beds.  “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.”  Who would have known the meaning of that to the full if he had not found that the Lord did not leave him when all else was gone?  “When thou passeth through the river I will be with thee.”  Who could have known the depth of truth in that word, if saints did not pass through the last cold stream. “As thy days so shall thy strength be.”  Who could have known to the full that word if he had not seen the believer triumphant on his dying day?  “Yea, though I pass through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff comfort me.”  You may read commentaries upon that psalm, but you will never value it so well as when you are in the valley yourself.  My dear departed friend said to me, ere I came away on one of my last visits, “Read me a psalm, dear pastor,” and I said, “which one?”  “There are many precious ones,” said he, “but as I get nearer to the time of my departure, I love the 23^rd best, let us have that again.”  “Why,” I said, “you know that by heart.”  “Yes,” said he, “it is in my heart too, it is most true and precious to me.”  And is it not so?  Yet you had not seen the 23rd Psalm to be a diamond of the purest water if you had not beheld its value to saints in their departing moments.

“Precious,” again, “in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints,” because the precious blood is glorified. It is memorable how saints turn to the cross when they die.  Not very often do you hear them speak of Christ in his glory then, it is of Christ the sufferer, Christ the substitute that they then speak. And how they delight to roll under their tongue as a sweet morsel, such texts as that one, “The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin.”  With what delight do they speak about having trusted in him years ago, and how gladly will they tell you that they have not been confounded.  All their hope and all their confidence lie in the crucified one alone, and they are persuaded that he is able to keep that which they have committed to him.  It ought to be the object of our lives to magnify the blood of Jesus, and to speak well of it, and to recommend it to others.

But oh, dear soul, if thou hast no faith in Christ’s blood, one argument that ought to convince thee of the sin of unbelief above all others is this — that blood has afforded comfort when pains have been bitter, and consolation when death has been imminent, not in one case or a thousand, but in countless cases.  Saints by myriads have died singing, for they have overcome the last enemy by the blood of the Lamb.  Oh, you that were never washed in Jesus’ blood, I dread to think of your dying.  What will you do without the Savior?  Oh, how will you pass the terrors of that tremendous hour, with no advocate on high pleading for you there, and no blood of Christ upon you pleading for you here.  Oh, fly to that cross, rest in that cross, then will you live well and die well; but, without the blood, you shall live uneasily and die wretchedly. God prevent it, for his name’s sake!

Again, the deaths of believers are precious to God because oftentimes precious utterances are given forth in the last moments. There are little volumes extant of the death bed sayings of saints, and if ever I have mistaken the utterances of man for inspiration, it has been when I have read some of these dying speeches.  Oh, what brave things do they tell of the heavenly world!  What glorious speeches do they make!  To some of them the veil has been thrown back, and they have spoken of things not seen as yet.  They have almost declared things which it were not lawful for men to utter, and, therefore, their speech has been broken, and mysterious, like dark sayings upon a harp.  We could hardly make out all they said, but we gathered that they were overwhelmed with glory, that they were confounded with unutterable bliss, that they had seen and fain would tell but must not, they had heard and fain would repeat but could not.  “Did you not see the glory?” they have said, and you have replied, “The sun shines upon you through yonder window;” they have shaken their heads, for they have seen a brightness not begotten of the sun.  Then have they cried, “Do you not hear it?” and we should have supposed that a sound in the street attracted them, but all was the stillness of night; silent all, except to their ear, which was ravished with the voice of harpers, harping with their harps.

I shall never forget hearing a brother, with whom I had often walked to preach the gospel, say,

“And when ye hear my eyestrings break,

How sweet my minutes roll;

A mortal paleness on my cheek,

But glory in my soul.”

It must have been a grand thing to hear good Harrington Evans say to his deacons, “Tell my people, tell them I am accepted in the Beloved;” or to hear John Rees say, “Christ in the glory of his person, Christ in the love of his heart, Christ in the power of his arm, this is the rock I stand on, and now death strike.”  Departing saints have uttered brave things and rare things which have made us wish that we had been going away with them, so have they made us long to see what they have seen, and to sit down and feast at their banquet.

The last reason I shall give why the death of a saint is precious is this — because it is a precious sheep folded, a precious sheaf harvested, precious vessel which had been long at sea brought into harbor, a precious child which had been long at school to finish his training brought home to dwell in the Father’s house for ever.  God the Father sees the fruit of his eternal love at last ingathered; Jesus sees the purchase of his passion at last secured; the Holy Spirit sees the object of his continual workmanship at last perfected: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit rejoice that now the blood-bought ones are free from all inbred sin and delivered from all temptation.

The battle’s fought, the battle’s fought, and the victory is won for ever.  The commander’s eagle eye, as he surveys the plain, watches joyously the shock of battle as he sees that his victory is sure.  But when at the last the fight culminates in one last assault, when the brave guards advance for the last attack, when the enemy gathers up all the shattered relics of his strength to make a last defense, when the army marches with sure and steady tramp to the last onslaught, then feels the warrior’s heart a stern overflowing joy, and as his veterans sweep their foes before them like chaff before the winnower’s fan, and the adversaries melt away, even as the altar fat consumes away in smoke, I see the commander exulting with beaming eye and hear him rejoicing in that last shock of battle, for in another moment there shall be the shout of victory, and the campaign shall be over, and the adversary shall be trampled for ever beneath his feet.  King Jesus looks upon the death of his saints as the last struggle of their life-conflict; and when that is over, it shall be said on earth and sung in heaven, “Thy warfare is accomplished, thy sin is pardoned, thou hast received of the Lord’s hand double for all thy sins.”  “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”

Sirs, are you his saints?  Preacher, thou speakest to others: hast thou been sanctified unto God?  Answer this in the silence of thy soul.  Officers of this church, are you saints or mere professors?  Members of this church, are you truly saints or are you hypocrites?  You who sit in this congregation Sabbath after Sabbath, have you been washed in the blood of Jesus?  Are you made saints or are you still in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity?  Casual visitors to this house of prayer, the same question would I press on you, are you saints of God?  If not, earth and hell combined, though they are both full of anguish, could not utter a shriek that should be shrill enough to set forth the woe unutterable of the death that shall surely come upon you.

Oh before that death overtakes you, fly to Jesus.  Trust Him, trust Him now!  Ere this day’s sun goes down, cast yourself at the feet of the crucified Redeemer, and live!  The Lord grant it, for his name’s sake.  Amen.

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“Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.  And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.” — Revelation 14:12, 13

The text speaks of a voice from heaven which said, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.”  The witness of that voice is not needed upon every occasion, for even the commonest observer is compelled to feel concerning many of the righteous that their deaths are blessed.  Balaam, with all his moral shortsightedness, could say, “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.”  That is the case when death comes in peaceful fashion.  The man has lived a calm, godly, consistent life; he has lived as long as he could well have wished to live, and in dying he sees his children and his children’s children gathered around his bed.  What a fine picture the old man makes, as he sits up with that snowy head supported by snowy pillows.  Hear him as he tells his children that goodness and mercy have followed him all the days of his life, and now he is going to dwell in the house of the Lord forever.  See the seraphic smile which lights up his face as he bids them farewell and assures them that he already hears the harpers harping with their harps — bids them stay those tears and weep not for him but for themselves — charges them to follow him so far as he has followed Christ and to meet him at the right hand of the Judge in the day of his appearing.  Then the old man, almost without a sigh, leans back and is present with the Lord.

Heaven waits not the last moment; owns her friends

On this side death, and points them out to men;

A lecture silent but of sovereign power!

To vice, confusion — and to virtue, peace.

Even the blind bat’s-eyed worldling can see that “blessed are the dead which die in the Lord” in such a fashion as that, nor is it difficult to perceive that this is the case in many other instances.  We have ourselves known several good men and women who were afraid of death and were much of their lifetime subject to bondage, but they went to bed and fell asleep and never woke again in this world, and as far as appearances go they could never have known so much as one single pang in departure, but fell asleep among mortals to awake amid the angels.  Truly, such gentle loosings of the cable, such fordings of Jordan dry shod, such ascents of the celestial hills with music at every step, are beyond measure desirable, and we need no voice out of the excellent glory to proclaim that blessed are the dead who in such a case die in the Lord.

But that was not the picture which John had before his mind.  It was quite another — a picture grim and black to mortal eye.  The sounds which meet the ear are not those of music, nor the whispered consolations of friends, but quite the reverse, all is painfully terrible, and the very opposite of blessed, so far as strikes the eye and ear.  Hence it became needful that there should be a voice from heaven to say, “Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord.”  I will give you the picture.  The man of God is on the rack.  They are turning that infernal machine with all their might; they have dragged every bone from its place; they have exercised their tortures till every nerve of his body thrills with agony.  He is flung into a dark and loathsome dungeon and left there to recover strength enough to be led in derision through the streets.  Upon his head they have placed a cap painted with devils, and all his garments they have adorned with the resemblance of fiends and flames of hell.  And now, with a priest on each side holding up before him a superstitious emblem and bidding him adore the Virgin or worship the cross, the good man, loaded with chains, goes through the street, say of Madrid or Antwerp, to the place prepared for his execution.  “An act of faith,” they call it – an auto da fe — and an act of heroic faith it is indeed when the man of God takes his place at the stake, in his shirt, with an iron chain about his loins, and is fastened to the tree, where he must stand and burn “quick to the death.”  Can you see him as they kindle the faggots beneath him, and the flames begin to consume his quivering flesh till he is all ablaze and burning — burning without a cry, though fiercely tormented by the fire?  Now assuredly is that voice from heaven wanted, and you can hear it, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord,” — blessed even when they die like this.

“Here is the patience of the saints,” and, in the esteem of angels and of glorified spirits, such a death may under many aspects be adjudged to be more blessed than the peaceful deathbed of the saint who had some fellowship with Jesus, but was not so made to drink of his cup and to be baptized with his baptism, as to die a painful and ignominious death as a witness for the truth.  It must have been a dreadful thing to watch the rabble rout hurrying to Smithfield, to stand there and see the burning of the saints.  It would have been a more fearful thing still, if possible, to have been in the dungeons of the Low Countries and seen the Anabaptists put to death in secret.  In a dungeon dark and pestilential, there is placed a huge vat of water, and the faithful witness to Scriptural baptism is drowned, drowned for following the Lamb whithersoever he goeth, drowned alone where no eye could pity and no voice from out of the crowd could shout a word of help and comfort.  Men hear only the coarse jests of the murderers who have given the dipper his last dip, but the ear of faith can hear ringing through the dungeon the voice, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.”  True, through the connection of their names with a fanatic band, these holy ancestors of ours have gained scant honor here, yet their record is on high; blessed they are, and blessed they shall be.  Wheresoever on this earth, whether among the snows of Piedmont’s valleys or in the fair fields of France, saints have died by sword or famine, or fire or massacre, for the testimony of Jesus, because they would not bear the mark of the beast either in their forehead or in their hand, this voice is heard sounding out of the third heavens, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.”

It matters not, my brethren, where they die who die in the Lord.  It may be that they have not the honor of martyrdom in man’s esteem, yet are witnesses for the Lord in poverty and pain.  Here is the patience and here also is the blessedness of the saints.  Yonder poor girl lies in a garret [watchtower], where the stars look between the tiles and the moon gleams on the ragged hangings of the pallet where she largely suffers and, without a murmur, gradually dissolves into death.  However obscure and unknown she may be, she has been kept from the great transgression; tempted sorely, she has yet held fast her purity and her integrity; her prayers, unheard by others, have gone up before the Lord, and she dies in the Lord, saved through Jesus Christ.  None will preach her funeral sermon, but she shall not miss that voice from Heaven, saying, “Write, blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.”  We repeat it, it matters not when you die nor in what condition; if you are in the Lord and die in the Lord, right blessed are ye.

First, we shall briefly describe their character, then mention the rest which constitutes their blessedness, and conclude by meditating upon the reward, which is a further part of that blessedness.

I. First, then, let us describe THE CHARACTER.

“Here is the patience of the saints.”  To be blessed when we die, we must be saints.  By nature we are sinners, and by grace we must become saints if we would enter heaven; for it is the land of saints, and none but saints can ever pass its frontiers.  Since death does not change character, we must be made saints here below if we are to be saints above.  We have come to misuse the term “saint,” and apply it only to some few of God’s people.  What means it but this — holy?  Holy men and holy women — these are saints.  It is not Saint Peter and Saint John merely; you are a saint, dear brother, if you live unto the Lord; you are a saint, my sister, however obscure your name, if you keep the Lord’s way, and walk before him in sincere obedience.  We must be saints, and in order to be this we must be renewed in spirit, for we are sinners by nature; we must, in fact, be born again.  All unholy and unclean, we are by nature nothing else but sin; and we must be created anew by the power of the eternal Spirit, or else holiness will never dwell in us.  Our loves must be changed, so that we no longer love evil things, but delight only in that which is true, generous, kind, upright, pure, godlike.  We must be changed in every faculty and power of our nature by that same hand which first made us, and across our brows must be written these words, “Holiness unto the Lord.”

The word saint denotes not merely the pure in character, but those who are set apart unto God, dedicated ones, sanctified by being devoted to holy uses — by being, in fact, consecrated to God alone.  My dear hearer, do you belong to God?  Do you live to glorify Jesus?  Can you honestly put your hand on your heart and say, “Yes, I belong to him who bought me with his blood, and I endeavor by his grace to live as he would have me live.  I am devoted to his honor, loving my fellow-men and loving my Lord, endeavoring to be like unto him in all things?”  You must be such, for “without holiness no man shall see the Lord.”

“But how am I to attain to holiness?”  You cannot rise to it save by divine strength.  The Holy Spirit is the Sanctifier.  Jesus who is our justifier is also made unto us sanctification, and if we by faith lay hold on him, we shall find in him all that we want.  Let this be a searching matter with every one here present, as I desire to make it with myself, and may God grant we may be numbered with the saints!

But the glorified are also described in our text as patient ones — “Here is the patience of the saints,” or, if you choose to render it differently, you may lawfully do so — “Here is the endurance of the saints.”  Those who are to be crowned in heaven must bear the cross on earth.  “No cross, no crown” is still most true.  Many would be saints if everybody would encourage them; but as soon as a hard word is spoken, they are offended.  They would go to heaven if they could travel there amidst the hosannas of the multitude, but when they hear the cry of “Crucify him, crucify him,” straightway they desert the man of Nazareth, for they have no intention to share his cross or to be despised and rejected of men.  The true saints of God are prepared to endure scoffing, and jeering, and scorning; they accept this cross without murmuring, remembering him who endured such contradiction of sinners against himself.  They know that their brethren who went before “resisted unto blood, striving against sin,” and as they have not yet come to that point, they count it foul scorn that they should be ashamed or confounded in minor trials, let their adversaries do what they may.  Those who are to sing Christ’s praise in heaven must first have been willing to bear Christ’s shame below.  Numbered with him in the humiliation must they be, or they cannot expect to be partakers with him in the glory.  And now, dear brethren and sisters, how is it with us?  Are we willing to be reproached for Christ’s glory?  Can we bear the sarcasm of the wise?  Can we bear the jest of the witty?  Are we willing to be pointed at as Puritanic, punctilious and precise?  Do we dare to be singular when to be singular is to be right?  If we can do this by God’s grace, let us further question ourselves.  Could we endure this ordeal if its intensity were increased?  Suppose it came to something worse — to the thumbscrew or the rack, could we then bear it?

I sometimes fear that many professors would cut a sorry figure if persecuting times should come; for I observe that to be excluded from what is called “society” is a great grievance to many modern Christians.  When they settle in any place, their enquiry is not, “Where can I hear the gospel best?” but “Which is the most fashionable place of worship?”  And the question with regard to their children is not, “Where will they have Christian associations?” but “How can I introduce them to society?” — introduction to society frequently being an introduction to temptation, and the commencement of a life of levity.  Oh, that all Christians could scorn the soft witcheries of the world, for, if they cannot, they may be sure that they will not bear its fiery breath when, like an oven, persecution comes forth to try the saints.  God grant us grace to have the patience of the saints; that patience of the saints which will cheerfully suffer loss rather than do a wrong thing in business; that patience of the saints which will pine in poverty sooner than yield a principle though a kingdom were at stake; that patience of the saints which dreads not being unfashionable if the right be reckoned so; that patience of the saints which courts no man’s smile, and fears no man’s frown, but can endure all things for Jesus’ sake, and is resolved to do so.  “Can you cleave to your Lord when the many turn aside?  Can you witness that he hath the living word, and none upon earth beside?”  Can you watch with him when all forsake him and stand by him when he is the butt of ribald jest and scorn, and bear the sneer of science, falsely so called, and more polite sarcasm of those who say they “doubt,” but mean that they utterly disbelieve?  Blessed is that preacher who shall be true to Christ in these evil days.  Blessed is that church-member who shall follow Christ’s word through the mire and through the slough, o’er the hill and down the dale, caring nothing so that he can but be true to his Master.  This must be our resolve.  If we are to win the glory, we must be faithful unto death.  God make us so!  “Here is the patience of the saints” — it cometh not by nature; it is the gift of the grace of God.

Farther on these saints are described as “they that keep the commandments of God.”  This expression is not intended for a moment to teach us that these people are saved by their own merits.  They are saints to begin with, and in Christ to begin with, but they prove they are in Christ by keeping the commandments of God.  Let us search ourselves upon this matter.  Brethren and sisters, we cannot hope to reach the end if we do not keep the way.  No man is so unwise as to think that he would reach Bristol if he were to take the road to York.  He knows that to get to a place he must follow the road which leads thither.  There is a way of holiness in which the righteous walk, and this way of obedience to the Lord’s commands must and will be trodden by all who truly believe in Jesus and are justified by faith, for faith works obedience.  A good tree brings forth good fruit.  If there be no fruit of obedience to God’s commands in you, or in me, we may rest assured that the root of genuine faith in Jesus Christ is not in us at all.  In this age the keeping of Christ’s commandments is thought to be of very little consequence.  It is dreadful to think how Christians in the matter of the law of God’s house do not even pretend to follow Christ and his appointments.  They join a church, and they go by the law of that church, though that church’s rule may be clean contrary to the will of Christ; but they answer to everything, “That is our rule, you know.”  But then who has a right to make rules for you or for me, but Christ Jesus?  He is the only legislator in the kingdom of God, and by his commands we ought to be guided.  I should not, I could not, feel grieved if brethren arrived at contrary conclusions to mine, I being fallible myself; but I do feel grieved when I see brethren arrive at conclusions, not as the result of investigation, but simply by taking things just as they find them.  Too many professors have a happy-go-lucky style of Christianity.  Whichever happens to come first they follow.  Their fathers and mothers were this or that, or they were brought up in such and such a connection, and that decides them; they do not pray, “Lord, show me what thou wouldst have me to do.”  Brethren, these things ought not so to be.  Has not the Master said, “Whosoever shall break one of the least of these my commandments, and teach men so, the same shall be least in the kingdom of heaven?”  I would not stand here to condemn my fellow Christians for a moment; in so doing I should condemn myself also, but I plead with you, if you do indeed believe in Jesus, be careful to observe all things whatsoever he hath commanded you, for he has said, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you;” and again, “If ye love me keep my commandments.”

A worldling once said to a puritan, “When so many great make rents in their consciences, cannot you make just a little nick in yours for peace’s sake?”  “No,” said he, “I must follow Christ fully.”  “Ah, well,” you say, “these things are non-essential.”  Nothing is non-essential to complete obedience: it may be non-essential to salvation, but it is selfishness to say, “I will do no more than I know to be absolutely necessary to my salvation.”  It is essential to a good servant to obey his master in all things, and it is essential for the healthiness of a Christian’s soul that he should walk very carefully and prayerfully before the Lord, else otherwise he will miss the blessing of them of whom it is said, “These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.”  To be blessed in death we must keep the commandments of God.

The next mark of the blessed dead is that they kept “the faith of Jesus.”  This is another point upon which I would emphasize, if I could, for to keep the faith of Jesus is an undertaking much ridiculed now-a-days.  “Doctrines!” says one, “we are tired of doctrines.”

For forms and creeds let graceless bigots fight,

He can’t be wrong whose life is in the right.

The opinion is current that to be fluent and original is the main thing in preaching, and provided a man is a clever orator it is a proper thing to hear him.  The Lord will wither with the breath of his nostrils that cleverness in any man which departs from the simplicity of the truth.  There is a gospel, and “there is also another gospel which is not another, but there be some that trouble you.”  There is a yea yea, and there is a nay nay; and woe unto those whose preaching is yea and nay, for it shall not stand in the great day when the Lord shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.  Search ye, my brethren, and know what the gospel is, and when you do know it, hold it: hold it as with a hand of iron and never relax your grasp.  Grievous wolves have come in among us, wolves of another sort to what were wont to be in the churches, yet, verily, after the same fashion they come disguised in sheep’s clothing.  They use our very terms and phrases, meaning all the while something else; they take away the essentials and vitalities of the faith and replace them with their own inventions, which they brag of as being more consistent with modern thought and with the culture of this very advanced and enlightened age, which seems by degrees to be advancing, half of it to Paganism with the Ritualists, and the other half of it to Atheism with the Rationalists.  From such advances may God save us!  May we be enabled to keep the faith and uphold the truth which we know, by which also we are saved.  I, for one, cannot desert the grand doctrine of the atoning blood, the substitutionary work of Christ, and the truths which cluster around it.  And why can I not desert these things?  Because my life, my peace, my hope hang upon them.  I am a lost man if there is no substitutionary sacrifice, and I know it.  If the Son of God did not die, “the just for the unjust, to bring us to God,” I must be damned; and therefore all the instincts of my nature cling to the faith of Jesus.  How can I give up that which has redeemed my soul and given me joy and peace and a hope hereafter?  I beseech you, do not waver in your belief, but keep the faith, lest ye be like some in old time who “made shipwreck of faith and a good conscience,” and were utterly cast away.  Woe unto those who keep not the doctrines of the gospel, for in due time they forget its precepts also and become utterly reprobate.  In departing from Christ, men forsake their own mercies both for life and death.  The blessed who die in the Lord are those who “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.”

Notice that these people continue faithful till they die.  For it is said, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.”  Final perseverance is the crown of the Christian life.  “Ye did run well; what did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?”  Vain is it to begin to build, we must crown the edifice or all men will deride us.  Helmet and plume, armor and sword, are all assumed for nothing unless the warrior fights on till he has secured the victory.

Those who thus entered into rest exercised themselves in labors for Christ.  For it is said, “They rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.”  The idle Christian can have little hope of a reward; he who serves not his Master can scarcely expect that his Master will at the last gird himself and serve him.  If I address any here who are not bringing forth fruit unto God, I can say no less than this, “Every tree that bringeth not forth fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.”  “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.”  The rule is invariable.  It must be so.  If there be no works and no labors for Christ, no suffering or patient endurance, we lack the main evidence of being the people of God at all.

To close this description of character, these people who die in the Lord were in the Lord.  That is the great point.  They could not have died in the Lord if they had not lived in the Lord.  But are we in the Lord?  Is the Lord by faith in us?  Dear hearer, are you resting upon Jesus Christ only?  Is he all your salvation and all your desire?  What is your reply to my enquiry?  You are not perfect, but Jesus is.  Are you hanging upon him as the vessel hangs upon the nail?  You cannot expect to stand before God with acceptance in yourself, but are you “accepted in the beloved?”  That is the question — “accepted in the beloved.”  Are you in Christ and is Christ in you by real vital union, by a faith that is the gift of God and the work of the Holy Spirit in your soul?  Answer, I charge you, for if you cannot answer these things before one of your own flesh and blood, how will you answer in your soul when the Lord himself shall come?

II. So much with regard to the character.  And now a very few words with regard to THE BLESSEDNESS which is ascribed to those who die in the Lord. “They rest from their labors.”

By this is meant that the saints in heaven rest from such labors as they performed here.  No doubt they fulfill service in heaven.  It would be an unhappy heaven in which there should be nothing for our activities to spend themselves upon.  But such labors as we can do here will not fall to our lot there.  There we shall not teach the ignorant, or rebuke the erring, or comfort the desponding, or help the needy.  There we cannot oppose the teacher of error or do battle against the tempter of youth.  There no little children can be gathered at our knee and trained for Jesus, no sick ones can be visited with the word of comfort, no backsliders led back, no young converts confirmed, no sinners converted.  They rest from such labors as these in heaven.

They rest from their labors in the sense that they are no longer subject to the toil of labor.  Whatever they do in heaven will yield them refreshment and never cause them weariness.  As some birds are said to rest upon the wing, so do the saints find in holy activity their serenest repose.  They serve him day and night in his temple, and therein they rest.  Even as on earth by wearing our Lord’s yoke we find rest unto our souls, so in the perfect obedience of heaven complete repose is found.

They rest also from the woe of labor, for I find the word has been read by some “they rest from their wailing.”  The original is a word which signifies to beat and hence, as applied to beating on the breast it indicates sorrow; but the beating may signify conflict with the world, or labor in any form.  The sorrow of work for Jesus is over with all the blessed dead.  Naught to that place approacheth their sweet peace to molest; they shall no more say that they are sick, neither shall adversity afflict them.  Their rest is perfect.  I do not know whether the idea of rest is cheering to all of you, but to some of us whose work exceeds our strength it is full of pleasantness.  Some have bright thoughts of service hereafter, and I hope we all have, but to those who have more to do for Christ than the weary brain can endure — the prospect of a bath in the ocean of rest is very pleasant.  They rest from their labors.

To the servant of the Lord, it is very sweet to think that, when we reach our heavenly home, we shall rest from the faults of our labors.  We shall make no mistakes there, never use too strong language or mistaken words, nor err in spirit, nor fail through excess or want of zeal.  We shall rest from all that which grieves us in the retrospect of our service.  Our holy things up there will not need to be wept over, though now they are daily salted with our tears.

We shall there rest from the discouragements of our labor.  There no cold-hearted brethren will damp our ardor or accuse us of evil motives; no desponding brethren will warn us that we are rash when our faith is strong and obstinate when our confidence is firm.  None will pluck us by the sleeve and hold us back when we would run the race with all our might.  None will chide us because our way is different from theirs, and none will foretell disaster and defeat when we confidently know that God will give us the victory.

We shall also rest from the disappointments of labor. Dear brother ministers, we shall not have to go home and tell our Lord that none have believed our report.  We shall not go to our beds sleepless because certain of our members are walking inconsistently and others of them are backsliding, while those that we thought were converted have gone back again to the world.  Here we must sow in tears: there we shall reap in joy.  There we shall wear the crown, or rather cast it at the Master’s feet; but here we must plunge deep into the sea to fetch up the pearls from the depths that they may be set in the diadem.  Here we labor; there we shall enjoy the fruits of toil, where no blight or mildew endangers the harvest.

It will be a sweet thing to get away to heaven, I am sure, to rest from all contentions amongst our fellow Christians. One of the hardest parts of Christ’s service is to follow peace and to maintain truth at the same time.  He is a wise chemist who can in due proportions blend the pure and the peaceable; he is no mean philosopher who can duly balance the duties of affection and faithfulness, and show us how to smite the sin and love the sinner — to denounce the error and yet to cultivate affection for the brother who has fallen into it.  We shall not encounter this difficulty in yon bright world of truth and love, for both we and our brethren shall be fully taught of the Lord in all things.  We shall be free from the clouds and mists of doubt which now cover the earth, and clear of the demon spirits which seek to ruin men’s souls beneath the shadow of deadly falsehood.  Blessed be God for this prospect!  It will be joy indeed to meet no one but a saint, to speak with none but those who use the language of Canaan, to commune with none but the sanctified.  Truly blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, if they reach to such as this.

To this our laboring souls aspire,

With ardent pangs of strong desire.

“Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem.”

III. The last matter for our consideration is THEIR REWARD — “They rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.”

Their works do not go before them; they have a forerunner infinitely superior to their works, for Jesus and his finished work have led the way.  “I go,” says he, “to prepare a place for you.”  In effect he says to us, “Not your works, but mine; not your tears, but my blood; not your efforts, but my finished work.”  Where then do our works come?  Do they march at our right hand or our left as subjects of cheering contemplation?  No, no, we dare not take them as companions to comfort us: they follow us at our heel; they keep behind us out of sight, and we ourselves in our desires after holiness always outmarch them.  The Christian should always keep his best services behind, always going beyond them, and never setting them before his eyes as objects for congratulation.  The preacher should labor to preach the best sermons possible, but he must never have them before him so as to cause him, in self-satisfaction, to say, “I have done well;” nor should he have them by his side, as if he rested in them, or leaned upon them, for this were to make antichrists of them.  No, let them come behind: that is their proper place.  Believers know where to put good works; they do not despise them, they never say a word to depreciate the law or undervalue the graces of the Holy Spirit, but still they dare not put their holiest endeavors in the room of Christ.  Jesus goes before, works follow after.

Note well that the works are in existence and are mentioned; immortality and honor belong to them.  The works of godly men are not insignificant or unimportant as some seem to think.  They are not forgotten, they are not as the leaves of last year’s summer; they are full of life and bloom unfadingly; they follow the saints as they ascend to heaven, even as the silver trail follows in the wake of the vessel.  I pictured just now a man burning at the stake; his enemies thought they had destroyed his work, but they only deepened its hold upon the age in which he suffered and projected his influence into the effect for ages to come.  They made a pile of his books, and as they blazed before his eyes they said, “There is an end of you and your heresies.”  Ah, what fools men have become!  Truth is not vanquished with such weapons, nay, nor so much as wounded.  Think of the case of Wycliffe, which I need not repeat to you.  They threw his ashes into the brook the brook carried them to the river, and the river to the sea, till every wave bore its portion of the precious relics, just as the influence of his preaching has been felt on every shore.  Persecutors concluded beyond all question that they had made an end of a good man’s teaching when they had burned him and thrown away his ashes, but they forgot that truth often gathers a more vigorous life from the death of the man who speaks it, and books once written have an immortality which laughs at fire.

Thousands of infidel and heathen works have gone, so that not a copy is to be found – I hope they never may be unearthed from the salutary oblivion which entombs them: but books written for the Master and his truth, though buried in obscurity are sure of a resurrection.  Fifty years ago our old Puritan authors, yellow with age and arrayed in dingy bindings, wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, destitute, afflicted, tormented, but they have been brought forth in new editions, every library is enriched with them, the most powerful religious thought is affected by their utterances and will be till the end of time.  You cannot kill a good man’s work, nor a good woman’s work either, though it be only the teaching of a few children in the Sunday-school.  You do not know to whom you may be teaching Christ, but assuredly you are sowing seed which will blossom and flower in the far off ages.  When Mrs. Wesley taught her sons, little did she think what they would become.  You do not know who may be in your class, my young friend.  You may have there a young Whitfield, and if the Lord enable you to lead him to Jesus, he will bring thousands to decision.  Ay, at your breast, good woman, there may be hanging one whom God will make a burning and a shining light; and if you train that little one for Jesus, your work will never be lost.  No holy tear is forgotten, it is in God’s bottle.  No desire for another’s good is wasted, God has heard it.  A word spoken for Jesus, a mite cast into Christ’s treasury, a gracious line written to a friend — all these are things which shall last when yonder sun has blackened into a coal and the moon has curdled into a clot of blood.  Deeds done in the power of the Spirit are eternal.  Therefore, “Be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”

Good works follow Christians and they will be rewarded.  The rewards of heaven will be all of grace, but there will be rewards.  You cannot read the Scripture without perceiving that the Lord first gives us good works, and then in his grace rewards us for them.  There is a “Well done, good and faithful servant,” and there is a proportionate allotment of reward to the man who was faithful with five talents and the man who was faithful with two.  You who live for Jesus may be quite certain that your life will be recompensed in the world to come.  I repeat it, the reward will not be of debt, but of grace, but a reward there will be.  Oh, the joy of knowing, when you are gone, that the truth you preached is living still!  Methinks the apostles since they have been in heaven must often have looked down on the world and marveled at the work which God helped twelve poor fishermen to do.  And they must have felt a growing blessedness as they have seen nations converted by the truth which they preached in feebleness.  What must be the joy of a pastor in glory to find his spiritual children coming in one by one!  Methinks, if I may, I shall go down to the gate and linger there to look for some of you.  Ay, not a few shall I welcome as my children there, blessed be the name of the Lord; but what a joy it will be!

You, teachers — you my good sister, who have brought so many to Christ — I cannot but believe that it shall multiply your heaven to see your dear ones entering it.  You will have a heaven in every one of those whose feet you guided thither, you will joy in their joy, and praise the Lord in their praise.  No, no, the good old cause shall never die and the truth shall never perish.  As I have lately read many hard things that have been spoken against the gospel, and as in going up and down throughout this land I have seen the nation wholly given to idolatry, I have felt something of the spirit of the Pole who wherever he wanders says to himself, “No, Poland, thou shalt never perish!”  Despite the darkness and ill-savor of the times, the gospel nears its triumph.  It can never perish.  Great men may fall, great reputations may grow obscure, grand philosophies may be cast into the shade, monstrous infidelities may win popularity, and old superstitions may come back again to darken us; but thy cross, Emmanuel, thy pure and simple gospel, the faith our fathers loved and died for, must continue to be earth’s brightest light — her day-star, till the day dawn and the shadows flee away.  The vessel of the church can never be wrecked; she rocks and reels in the mad tempest, but she is sound from stem to stern and her pilot steers her with a hand omnipotently wise.  Her bow is in the wave, but see she divides the sea and shakes off the mountainous billows, as a lion shakes the dew from his mane!  Fiercer storms than those of the present have beat upon her, and yet she has kept her eye to the wind, and in the very teeth of hell’s tremendous tempests she has ploughed her glorious way: and so she will till she reaches her appointed haven.  The Lord liveth and the Lord reigneth, and Christ from the tree has gone to the throne — from Gethsemane and Golgotha up to the glory; and all power is given unto him in heaven and in earth.  We have nothing to do but to go on preaching the gospel and baptizing in his name, according to his bidding; and the day shall come when the might with the right and the truth shall be, and the right hand of Jesus with the iron rod shall break his adversaries and reward his friends.  The Lord own every one of us as being on his side; and if we are not on that side, oh, that we may speedily become so by repentance and faith!  May the Lord turn us, and we shall be turned; for if “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord,” depend upon it, cursed are they that die out of Christ — ay, cursed with a curse, and their works shall follow them or go before them, unto judgment, to their condemnation.  May infinite mercy save us from being howled at by our works in the next world, save us from being hunted down by the wolves of our past sins, risen from the dead; for, except we are forgiven, our transgressions will rise from the grave of forgetfulness, and gather around us, and tear us in pieces, and there shall be none to deliver.

May we fly even now to Jesus, and through faith in his blood be delivered from all evil that we also may have it said of us, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.”  The Lord bless you for Christ’s sake.  Amen.

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“And I will put my spirit within you.” — Ezekiel 36:27

The Holy Spirit is the third Person in the covenant.  We have considered “God in the Covenant;” and “Christ in the Covenant;” and now, this morning, we have to consider the Holy Spirit in the covenant.  For, remember, it is necessary that the Triune God should work out the salvation of the Lord’s people, if they are to be saved at all; and it was absolutely requisite that, when the covenant was made, all that was necessary should be put into it; and, among the rest, the Holy Spirit, without whom all things done even by the Father and by Jesus Christ would be ineffectual, for he is needed as much as the Savior of men, or the Father of spirits.  In this age, when the Holy Spirit is too much forgotten, and but little honor is accorded to his sacred person, I feel that there is a deep responsibility upon me to endeavor to magnify his great and holy name.  I almost tremble, this morning, in entering on so profound a subject, for which I feel myself so insufficient.  But, nevertheless, relying on the aid, the guidance, and the witness of the Holy Spirit himself, I venture upon an exposition of this text “I will put my Spirit within you.”

The Holy Spirit is given, in the covenant, to all the children of God, and received by each in due course; and yet, upon our Lord Jesus Christ did the Spirit first descend, and alighted upon him as our Covenant-head, “like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard; that went down to the skirts of his garments.”  The Father hath given the Holy Spirit without measure unto his Son; and from him, in measure, though still in abundance, do all “the brethren who dwell together in unity” (or union with Christ) partake of the Spirit.  This holy anointing flows down from Jesus, the anointed One, to every part of his mystical body, to every individual member of his Church.  The Lord’s declaration concerning Christ was, “I have put my Spirit upon HIM;” and he said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon ME, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted.”  The Spirit was first poured upon Christ, and from him descends to all those who are in union with his adorable person.  Let us bless the name of Christ if we are united to him; and let us look up to our covenant Head, expecting that from him will flow down the heavenly unction which shall anoint our souls.

My text is one of the unconditional promises of Scripture.  There are many conditional promises in the Word of God, given to certain characters; although even these promises are in some sense unconditional, since the very condition of the promise is by some other promise secured as a gift; but this one has no condition whatever.  It does not say, “I will put my Spirit within them, if they ask for him;” it says plainly, without any reservation or stipulation, “I will put my Spirit within them.”  The reason is obvious.  Until the Spirit is put within us, we cannot feel our need of the Spirit, neither can we ask for or seek him; and, therefore, it is necessary that there should be an absolutely unconditional promise, made to all the elect children of God, that they should have given to them the waiting grace, the desiring grace, the seeking grace, the believing grace, which shall make them pant and hunger and thirst after Jesus.  To everyone who is, like Christ, “chosen of God, and precious,” to every redeemed soul, however sunken in sin, however lost and ruined by the Fall, however much he may hate God and despise his Redeemer, this promise still holds good, “I will put my Spirit within you;” and, in due course, every one of them shall have that Spirit, who shall quicken them from the dead, lead them to seek pardon, induce them to trust in Christ, and adopt them into the living family of God.

The promise is also concerning an internal blessing to be bestowed: “I will put my Spirit within you.”  Remember, we have the Spirit of God in his written Word, and with every faithful minister of the gospel, the Spirit is likewise vouchsafed to us in the ordinances of Christ’s Church.  God is perpetually giving the Spirit to us by these means.  But it is in vain for us to hear of the Spirit, to talk of him, or to believe in him, unless we have a realization of his power within us; here, therefore, is the promise of such an internal blessing: “I will put my Spirit within you.”

We come now to consider this promise in all its comprehensiveness; may the Holy Spirit himself assist us in so doing!  We shall take the various works of the Holy Ghost, one by one, and shall remember that, in all the works which he performs, the Spirit is put in the covenant to be possessed by every believer.

I. In the first place, we are told by Christ, “IT IS THE SPIRIT THAT QUICKENETH.”

Until he is pleased to breathe upon the soul, it is dead to any spiritual life. It is not until the Spirit, like some heavenly wind, breathes upon the dry bones, and puts life into them, that they can ever live.  You may take a corpse, and dress it in all the garments of external decency; you may wash it with the water of morality; ay, you may bedeck it with the crown of profession, and put upon its brow a tiara of beauty, you may paint its cheeks until you make it like life itself.  But remember, unless the spirit be there, corruption will ere long seize on the body.  So, beloved, it is the Spirit who is the Quickener; you would have been as “dead in trespasses and sins” now as ever you were, if it had not been for the Holy Ghost, who made you alive.  You were lying, not simply “cast out in the open field,” but, worse than that, you were the very prey of mortality; corruption was your father, the worm was your mother and your sister; you were noxious in the nostrils of the Almighty.  It was thus that the Savior beheld you in all your loathsomeness, and said to you, “Live.”  In that moment, you were “begotten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”  Life entered into you at his bidding; then it was that the Spirit quickened you.  The words of Jesus, so he told his disciples, “They are spirit, and they are life.”  You were made alive entirely through the might of the quickening Spirit.

“The Spirit, like some heavenly wind

Blows on the sons of flesh;

Creates a new — a heavenly mind,

And forms the man afresh.”

If, then, you feel at any time death working in you, as doubtless you will, withering the bloom of your piety, chilling the fervor of your devotions, and quenching the ardor of your faith, remember that he who first quickened you must keep you alive. The Spirit of God is the sap that flowed into your poor, dry branch, because you were grafted into Christ; and as, by that sap, you were first made green with life, so it is by that sap alone you can ever bring forth fruit unto God.  By the Spirit you drew your first breath, when you cried out for mercy, and from the same Spirit you must draw the breath to praise that mercy in hymns and anthems of joy.

Having begun in the Spirit, you must be made perfect in the Spirit.  “The flesh profiteth nothing;” the works of the law will not help you; the thoughts and devices of your own hearts are of no avail.  You would be cut off from Christ, you would be more depraved than you were before your conversion, you would be more corrupt than you were previous to your being regenerated, — “twice dead, plucked up by the roots,” if God the Holy Ghost were to withdraw from you.  You must live in his life, trust in his power to sustain you, and seek of him fresh supplies, when the tide of your spiritual life is running low.

II. WE NEED THE HOLY SPIRIT, AS AN ASSISTANT SPIRIT, IN ALL THE DUTIES WE HAVE TO PERFORM.

The most common Christian duty is that of prayer; for the meanest child of God must be a praying child.  Remember, then, that it is written, “The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities; for we know not what to pray for as we ought.”  The Spirit of God is in the covenant, as the great aid to us in all our petitions to the throne of grace.  Child of God, thou knowest not what to pray for; rely, then, on the Spirit, as the Inspirer of prayer, who will tell thee how to pray.  Sometimes thou knowest not how to express what thou desires; rely upon the Spirit, then, as the One who can touch thy lips with the “live coal from off the altar,” whereby thou shalt be able to pour out thy fervent wishes before the throne.  Sometimes, even when thou hast life and power within thee, thou canst not express thine inward emotions; then rely upon that Spirit to interpret thy feelings, for he “maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”  When, like Jacob, thou art wrestling with the angel, and art nearly thrown down, ask the Holy Spirit to nerve thine arms.  The Holy Spirit is the chariot wheel of prayer.  Prayer may be the chariot, the desire may draw it forth, but the Spirit is the very wheel whereby it moveth.  He propels the desire, and causeth the chariot to roll swiftly on, and to bear to heaven the supplication of the saints, when the desire of the heart is “according to the will of God.”

Another duty, to which some of the children of God are called, is that of preaching; and here too we must have the Holy Spirit to enable us.  Those whom God calls to preach the gospel are assisted with might from on high.  He has said, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”  It is a solemn thing to enter upon the work of the ministry.  I will just make an observation here; for, in this place, there are young men, who are striving to enter into the ministry before they scarcely know the alphabet of the gospel; they set themselves up as preachers of God’s Word, when the first thing they ought to do is to join the infant class in a school, and learn to read properly.  I know there are some, to whom God has given the desire thus to seek the glory of his name and the welfare of souls, and who humbly wait till he has opened the way; God bless them, and speed them!

But — would you believe it? — a young man was baptized, and received into the church one Sunday, — and he positively went off to a College on the Monday or Tuesday, to ask if they would receive him!  I asked him whether he had ever preached before, or addressed half-a-dozen Sunday scholars.  He said, “No.”  But what surprised me most was, that he said he was collect to the work before he was converted!  It was a call from the devil, I verily believe; — not a call from God in the least degree.  Take heed that ye touch not God’s ark with unholy fingers.  You may all preach if you can, but take care that you do not set yourselves up in the ministry, without having a solemn conviction that the Spirit from on high has set you apart; for, if you do, the blood of souls will be found in your skirts.  Too many have rushed into the holy place, uncalled of God; who, if they could have rushed out of it on their dying beds, would have had eternal cause for gratitude.  But they ran presumptuously, then preached unsent, and therefore unblessed; and, when dying, they felt a greater condemnation from the fact that they had taken on themselves an office to which God had never appointed them.  Beware of doing that; but if God has called you, however little talent you may have, fear not anyone’s frown or rebuke.  If you have a solemn conviction in your souls that God has really ordained you to the work of the ministry, and if you have obtained a seal to your commission in the conversion of even one soul, let not death or hell stop you; go straight on, and never think you must have certain endowments to make a successful preacher.

The only endowment necessary for success in the ministry is the endowment of the Holy Ghost.  When preaching in the presence of a number of ministers, last Friday, I told the brethren there, when one of them asked how it was God had been pleased to bless me so much in this place, “There is not one of you whom God could not bless ten times as much, if you had ten times as much of the Spirit.”  For it is not any ability of the man, — it is not any human qualification, — it is simply the influence of God’s Spirit that is necessary; and I have been delighted to find myself abused as ignorant, unlearned, and void of eloquence, all which I knew long before; but so much the better, for then all the glory belongs to God.  Let men say what they please, I will always confess to the truth of it.

I am a fool: “I have become a fool in glorying,” if you please.  I will take any opprobrious title that worldlings like to put upon me; but they cannot deny the fact that God blesses my ministry, that harlots have been saved, that drunkards have been reclaimed, that some of the most abandoned characters have been changed, and that God has wrought such a work in their midst as they never saw before in their lives.  Therefore, give all the glory to his holy name.  Cast as much reproach as you like on me, ye worldlings; the more honor shall there be to God, who worketh as he pleaseth, and with what instrument he chooseth, irrespective of man.

Again, dearly beloved, whatever is your work; whatever God has ordained you to do in this world, you are equally certain to have the assistance of the Holy Spirit in it. If it be the teaching of an infant class in the Sabbath-school, do not think you cannot have the Holy Spirit.  His succor shall be granted as freely to you as to the man who addresses a large assembly.  Are you sitting down by the side of some poor dying woman?  Believe that the Holy Spirit will come to you there, as much as if you were administering the sacred elements of the Lord’s Supper.  Let your strength for the lowliest work, as much as for the loftiest, be sought from God.  Spiritual plowman, sharpen thy plowshare with the Spirit!  Spiritual sower, dip thy seed in the Spirit, so shall it germinate; and ask the Spirit to give thee grace to scatter it, that it may fall into the right furrows!  Spiritual warrior, whet thy sword with the Spirit; and ask the Spirit, whose Word is a two-edged sword, to strengthen thine arm to wield it!

III. THE HOLY SPIRIT IS GIVEN TO THE CHILDREN OF GOD AS A SPIRIT OF REVELATION AND OF INSTRUCTION.

He brings us “out of darkness into marvelous light.”  By nature, we are ignorant, extremely so; but the Holy Spirit teaches the family of God, and makes them wise.  “Ye have an unction from the Holy One,” said the apostle John, “and ye know all things.”  Student in the school of Christ, wouldst thou be wise?  Ask not the theologian to expound to thee his system of divinity; but, sitting down meekly at the feet of Jesus, ask that his Spirit may instruct thee; for I tell thee, student, though thou shouldst read the Bible many a year, and turn over its pages continually, thou wouldst not learn anything of its hidden mysteries without the Spirit.  But mayhap, in a solitary moment of thy study, when suddenly enlightened by the Spirit, thou mayest learn a truth as swiftly as thou seest the lightning flash.  Young people, are you laboring to understand the doctrine of election?  It is the Holy Spirit alone who can reveal it to your heart, and make you comprehend it.  Are you tugging and toiling at the doctrine of human depravity?  The Holy Spirit must reveal to you the depth of wickedness of the human heart.  Are you wanting to know the secret of the life of the believer, as he lives by the faith of the Son of God, and the mysterious fellowship with the Lord he enjoys?  It must always be a mystery to you unless the Holy Spirit shall unfold it to your heart.  Whenever thou readest the Bible, cry to the Spirit, “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.”  The Spirit gives eye-salve to the blind; and if thine eyes are not now open, seek the eye-salve, and so thou shalt see, — ay, and see so clearly that he, who has only learned in man’s school, shall ask, “How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?”

Those who are taught of the Spirit often surpass those who are taught of man.  I have met with an entirely uninstructed clod-hopper, in the country, who never went to school for one hour in his life, who yet knew more about the Holy Scriptures than many a clergyman trained at the University.  I have been told that it is a common practice for men in Wales, while they are at work, breaking stones on the road, to discuss difficult points in theology, which many a divine cannot master: for this reason, that they humbly read the Scriptures, trusting only to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and believing that he will lead them into all truth; and he is pleased so to do.  All other instruction is very well; Solomon says, “that the soul be without knowledge, it is not good;” we should all seek to know as much as can be known: but let us remember that, in the work of salvation, real knowledge must be obtained by the teaching of the Holy Ghost; and if we would learn in the heart, and not merely in the head, we must be taught entirely by the Holy Spirit.  What you learn from man, you can unlearn; but what you learn of the Spirit is fixed indelibly in your heart and conscience, and not even Satan himself can steal it from you.  Go, ye ignorant ones, who often stagger at the truths of revelation; go, and ask the Spirit, for he is the Guide of benighted souls; ay, and the Guide of his own enlightened people too; for, without his aid, even when they have been “once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift,” they would not understand all truth unless he led them into it.

IV. I desire further to mention that GOD WILL GIVE THE SPIRIT TO US AS A SPIRIT OF APPLICATION.

Thus it was that Jesus said to his disciples, “He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you.”  To make the matter still more plain, our Lord added, “All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you.”  Let me remind you how frequently Jesus impressed on his disciples the fact that he spake to them the words of his Father: “My doctrine,” said he, “is not mine, but his that sent me.”  And again, “The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.”  As Christ thus made known the will of God the Father to his people, so the Holy Ghost makes known to us the words of Christ.  I could almost affirm that Christ’s words would be of no use to us unless they were applied to us by the Holy Spirit.  Beloved, we need the application to assure our hearts that they are our own, that they are intended for us, and that we have an interest in their blessedness; and we need the unction of the Spirit to make them bedew our hearts, and refresh our souls.

Did you ever have a promise applied to your heart?  Do you understand what is meant by application as the exclusive work of the Spirit?  It is, as Paul says the gospel came to the Thessalonians, “not in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance.”  Sometimes it cometh of a sudden; your heart may have been the scene of a thousand distracting thoughts, billow dashing against billow, till the tempest rose beyond your control.  Anon, some text of Scripture, like a mighty fiat from the lips of Jesus, has stilled your troubled breast, and immediately there has been a great calm, and you have wondered whence it came.  The sweet sentence has rung like music in your ears; like a wafer made of honey, it has moistened your tongue; like a charm, it has quelled your anxieties, while it has dwelt uppermost in your thoughts all the day long, reining in all your lawless passions and restless strivings.  Perhaps it has continued in your mind for weeks; wherever you went, whatever you did, you could not dislodge it, nor did you wish to do so, so sweet, so savory was it to your soul.  Have you not thought of such a text that it is the best in the Bible, the most precious in all the Scriptures?  That was because it was so graciously applied to you.

Oh, how I love applied promises!  I may read a thousand promises as they stand recorded on the pages of this Sacred Volume, and yet get nothing from them; my heart would not burn within me for all the richness of the store; but one promise, brought home to my soul by the Spirit’s application, hath such marrow and fatness in it that it would be food enough for forty days for many of the Lord’s Elijahs.  How sweet it is, in the times of deep affliction, to have this promise applied to the heart: “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee!”  Perhaps you say, “That is all enthusiasm.”  Of course it appears so to you, if, as natural men, ye discern not the things of the Spirit; but we are talking about spiritual things to spiritual men, and to them it is no mere enthusiasm, it is often a matter of life or death.  I have known numerous cases where almost the only plank on which the poor troubled saint was able to float was just one text, of which, somehow or other, he had got so tight a grasp that nothing could take it away from him.

Nor is it only his Word which needs to be applied to us.  “He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you,” may be referred likewise to our Savior’s precious blood. We sometimes sing, —“There is a fountain filled with blood,” —and we talk of bathing in it.  Now, faith does not apply the blood to the soul; that is the work of the Spirit.  True, I seek it by faith; but it is the Spirit who washes me in “the fountain opened…for sin and for uncleanness.”  It is the Spirit who receives of the things of Christ, and shows them unto me.  You would never have a drop of blood sprinkled on your heart unless it was sprinkled by the hand of the Spirit.  So, too, the robe of Christ’s righteousness is entirely fitted on us by him.  We are not invited to appropriate the obedience of Christ to ourselves; but the Spirit brings all to us which Christ has made for us.  Ask, then, of the Spirit that you may have the Word applied, the blood applied, pardon applied, and grace applied, and you shall not ask in vain; for Jehovah hath said, “I will put my Spirit within you.”

V. WE MUST RECEIVE THE SPIRIT AS A SANCTIFYING SPIRIT.

Perhaps this is one of the greatest works of the Holy Ghost, — sanctifying the soul.  It is a great work to purge the soul from sin; it is greater than if one should wash a leopard till all his spots were obliterated, or an Ethiopian till his sable skin became white; for our sins are more than skin-deep, — they have entered into our very nature.  Should we be outwardly washed white this morning, we should be black and polluted before tomorrow; and if all the spots were taken away today, they would grow again tomorrow, for we are black all through.  You may scrub the flesh, but it is black to the last; our sinfulness is a leprosy that lies deep within.  But the Holy Spirit sanctifies the soul; he enters the heart, beginning the work of sanctification by conversion; he keeps possession of the heart, and preserves sanctification by perpetually pouring in fresh oil of grace, till at last he will perfect sanctification by making us pure and spotless, fit to dwell with the blest inhabitants of glory.

The way the Spirit sanctifies is this: first he reveals to the soul the evil of sin, and makes the soul hate it; he shows it to be a deadly evil, full of poison; and when the soul begins to hate it, the next thing the Spirit does is, to show it that the blood of Christ takes all the guilt away, and, from that very fact, to lead it to hate sin even more than it did when it first knew its blackness.  The Spirit takes it to “the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel;” and there he tolls the death-knell of sin as he points to the blood of Christ, and says, “He shed this for you, that he might purchase you unto himself, to be one of his peculiar people, zealous of good works.”  Afterwards, the Holy Spirit may, at times, allow sin to break out in the heart of the child of God that it may be more strongly repressed by greater watchfulness in future; and when the heir of heaven indulges in sin, the Holy Spirit sends a sanctifying chastisement upon the soul, until, the heart being broken with grief, by the blueness of the wound, evil is cleansed away; and conscience, feeling uneasy, sends the heart to Christ, who removes the chastisement, and takes away the guilt.

Again, remember, believer, all thy holiness is the work of the Holy Spirit. Thou hast not a grace which the Spirit did not give thee; thou hast not a solitary virtue which he did not work in thee; thou hast no goodness which has not been given to thee by the Spirit; therefore, never boast of thy virtues or of thy graces.  Hast thou now a sweet temper, whereas thou once wast passionate? Boast not of it; thou wilt be angry yet if the Spirit leaves thee.  Art thou now pure, whereas thou wast once unclean?  Boast not of thy purity, the seed of which was brought from heaven; it never grew within thy heart by nature; it is God’s gift alone.  Is unbelief prevailing against thee?  Do thy lusts, thine evil passions, and thy corrupt desires, seem likely to master thee?  Then I will not say, “Up, and at ‘em!” but I will say, — Cry mightily unto God, that thou mayest be filled with the Holy Spirit, so shalt thou conquer at last, and become more than conqueror over all thy sins, seeing that the Lord hath engaged to put his Spirit “within you.”

VI. THE SPIRIT OF GOD IS PROMISED TO THE HEIRS OF HEAVEN AS DIRECTING SPIRIT, to guide them in the path of providence.

If you are ever in a position in which you know not what road to take, remember that your “strength is to sit still,” and your wisdom is to wait for the directing voice of the Spirit, saying to you, “This is the way, walk ye in it.”  I trust.  I have proved this myself, and I am sure every child of God, who has been placed in difficulties, must have felt, at times, the reality and blessedness of this guidance.  And have you never prayed to him to direct you? If you have, did you ever find that you went wrong afterwards?  I do not mean the sort of prayers that they present who ask counsel, but not of the Lord; “who walk to go down into Egypt, . . . to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh,” and then ask God to bless them in a way that he never sanctioned.  No; you must start fairly by renouncing every other trust.  It is only thus that you can make proof of his promise, “Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass.”  Take with you, then, child of God, an open confession; say, “Lord, I desire, like a sheet of water, to be moved by the breath of the Spirit; here I lie, ‘passive in thy hand;’ fain would I know no will but thine: show me thy will, O Lord!  Teach me what to do, and what to refrain from doing.”

To some of you, this may seem all fanaticism; you believe not that God the Holy Spirit ever guides men in the way they should take.  So you may suppose, if you have never experienced his guidance.  We have heard that, when one of our English travelers, in Africa, told the inhabitants of the intense cold that sometimes prevailed in his country, by which water became so hard that people could skate and walk upon it, the king threatened to put him to death if he told anymore lies, for he had never felt or seen such things; and what one has never seen or felt is certainly fit subject for doubt and contradiction.  But, with regard to the Lord’s people, who tell you that they are led by the Spirit, I advise you to give heed to their sayings, and seek to make the trial for yourselves.  It would be a good thing if you were just to go to God, as a child, in all your distresses.

Remember that, as a solicitor whom you may safely consult, as a guide whose directions you may safely follow, as a friend on whose protection you may safely rely, the Holy Spirit is personally present in the Church of Christ, and with each of the disciples of Jesus; and there is no fee to pay but the fee of gratitude and praise, because he has directed you so well.

VII. Just once more, — THE HOLY SPIRIT WILL BE GIVEN TO GOD’S CHILDREN AS A COMFORTING SPIRIT.

This is peculiarly his office. Have you never felt that, immediately before a great and grievous trouble, you have had a most unaccountable season of joy?  You scarcely knew why you were so happy or so tranquil, you seemed to be floating upon a very Sea of Elysium; there was not a breath of wind to ruffle your peaceful spirit, all was serene and calm.  You were not agitated by the ordinary cares and anxieties of the world; your whole mind was absorbed in sacred meditation.  By-and-by, the trouble comes, and you say, “Now I understand it all; I could not before comprehend the meaning of that grateful lull, that quiet happiness; but I see now that it was designed to prepare me for these trying circumstances.  If I had been low and dispirited when this trouble burst upon me, it would have broken my heart.

But now, thanks be to God, I can perceive through Jesus Christ how this “light affliction, which is but for a moment,” worketh for me, “a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”  “ But, mark you, I believe that it is worthwhile to have the troubles in order to get the comfort of the Holy Spirit; it is worthwhile to endure the storm in order to realize the joys.

Sometimes, my heart has been shaken by obloquy, shame, and contempt; for many a brother minister, of whom I thought better things, has reviled me; and many a Christian has turned on his heel away from me, because I had been misrepresented to him, and he has hated me without a cause; but it has so happened that, at that very time, if the whole church had turned its back on me, and the whole world had hissed me, it would not have greatly moved me; for some bright ray of spiritual sunshine lit up my heart, and Jesus  whispered to me those sweet words, “I am my Beloved’s, and my Beloved is mine.”  At such times, the consolations of the Spirit have been neither few nor small with me.  O Christian, if I were able, I would bring thee yet further into the depths of this glorious passage; but, as I cannot, I must leave it with you.  It is full of honey; only put it to your lips, and get the honey from it.  “I will put my Spirit within you.”

In winding up, let me add a remark or two.  Do you not see here the absolute certainty of the salvation of every believer? Or rather, is it not absolutely certain that every member of the family of God’s Israel must be saved?  For it is written, “I will put my Spirit within you.” Do you think that, when God puts his Spirit within men, they can possibly be damned?  Can you think God puts his Spirit into them, and yet they perish, and are lost?  You may think so if you please, sir; but I will tell you what God thinks: “I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes; and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.”  Sinners are far from God by wicked works, and they will not come unto him that they may have life; but when God says, “I will put my Spirit within you,” he compels them to come to him.

What a vain pretense it is to profess to honor God by a doctrine that makes salvation depend on the will of man! If it were true, you might say to God, “We thank thee, O Lord, for what thou hast done; thou hast given us a great many things, and we offer thee thy need of praise, which is justly due to thy name; but we think we deserve more, for the deciding point was in our free will.”  Beloved, do not any of you swerve from the free grace of God, for the babblings about man’s free agency are neither more nor less than lies, right contrary to the truth of Christ, and the teachings of the Spirit.

How certain, then, is the salvation of every elect soul!  It does not depend on the will of man; he is “made willing” in the day of God’s power.  He shall be called at the set time, and his heart shall be effectually changed, that he may become a trophy of the Redeemer’s power.  That he was unwilling before, is no hindrance; for God giveth him the will, so that he is then of a willing mind.  Thus, every heir of heaven must be saved, because the Spirit is put within him, and thereby his disposition and affections are molded according to the will of God.

Once more, how useless is it for any persons to suppose that they can be saved without the Holy Spirit! Ah, dear friends! men sometimes go very near to salvation without being saved; like the poor man who lay by the side of the pool of Bethesda, always close to the water, but never getting in.  How many changes in outward character there are which very much resemble conversion; but, not having the Spirit in them, they fail after all!

Rely on this; it is nothing but the grace of the Spirit of God that makes sure work of your souls.  Unless he shall change you, you may be changed, but it will not be a change that will endure.  Unless he shall put his hand to the work, the work will be marred, the pitcher spoiled on the wheel.  Cry unto him, therefore, that he may give you the Holy Spirit, that you may have the evidence of a real conversion, and not a base counterfeit.  Take heed, sirs, take heed!  Natural fear, natural love, natural feelings, are not conversion.  Conversion, in the first instance, and by all subsequent edification, must be the work of the Holy Spirit, and of him alone.  Never rest comfortable, then, until you have the Holy Spirit’s operations most surely effected in your hearts!

Preached by Spurgeon in 1856.

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“Hide not thine ear at my breathing.” — Lamentations 3:56.

Young beginners in grace are very apt to compare themselves with advanced disciples, and so to become discouraged; and tried saints fall into the like habit.  They see those of God’s people who are upon the mount, enjoying the light of their Redeemer’s countenance, and, comparing their own condition with the joy of the saints, they write bitter things against themselves, and conclude that surely they are not the people of God.  This course is as foolish as though the lambs should suspect themselves not to be of the cloak because they are not sheep, or as though a sick man should doubt his existence because he is not able to walk or run as a man in good health.  But since this evil habit is very common, it is our duty to seek after the dispirited and cast-down ones, and comfort them.  That is our errand in this short discourse.  We hear the Master’s words, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,” and we will endeavor to obey them by his Spirit’s help.

Upon the matter of prayer, many are dispirited because they cannot yet pray as advanced believers do, or because, during some peculiar crisis of their spiritual history, their prayers do not appear to them to be so fervent and acceptable as is the case with other Christians.  Perhaps God may have a message to some troubled ones in the present address, and may the Holy Ghost apply it with power to such!

“Hide not thine ear as my breathing.”  This is a singular description of prayer, is it not?  Frequently, prayer is said to have a voice; it is so in this verse: “Thou hast heard my voice.”  Prayer has a melodious voice in the ear of our Heavenly Father.  Frequently, too, prayer is expressed by a cry.  It is so in this verse: “Hide not thine ear at my cry.”  A cry is the natural, plaintive utterance of sorrow, and has as much power to move the heart of God as a babe’s cry to touch a mother’s tenderness.

But there are times when we cannot speak with the voice, nor even cry, and then a prayer may be expressed by a moan, or a groan, or a tear, — “the heaving of a sigh, the falling of a tear.”  But, possibly, we may not even get so far as that, and may have to say, like one of old, “Like a crane or a swallow, so do I chatter.”  Our prayer, as heard by others, may be a kind of irrational utterance.  We may feel as if we moaned like wounded beasts, rather than prayed like intelligent men; and we may even fall below that, for, in the text, we have a kind of prayer which is less than a moan or a sigh.  It is called a breathing: “Hide not thine ear at my breathing.”  The man is too far gone for a glance of the eye, or the moaning of the heart, he scarcely breathes, but that, faint breath is prayer.  Though unuttered and unexpressed by any sounds which could reach a human ear, yet God hears the breathing of his servant’s soul, and hides not his ear from it.  We shall teach three or four lessons from the present use of the expression “breathing.”

I. When We Cannot Pray As We Would, It Is Good To Pray As We Can.

Bodily weakness should never be urged by us as a reason for ceasing to pray; in fact, no living child of God will ever think of such a thing.  If I cannot bend the knees of my body because I am so weak, my prayers from my bed shall be on their knees, my heart shall to on its knees, and pray as acceptably as aforetime.  Instead of relaxing prayer because the body suffers, true hearts, at such times, usually double their petitions.  Like Hezekiah, they turn their face to the wall that they may see no earthly object, and then they look at the things invisible, and talk with the Most High, ay, and often in a sweeter and more familiar manner than they did in the days of their health and strength.  If we are so faint that we can only lie still and breathe, let every breath be prayer.

Nor should a true Christian relax his prayer through mental difficulties, I mean those perturbations which distract the mind, and prevent the concentration of our thoughts.  Such ills will happen to us.  Some of us are often much depressed, and are frequently so tossed to and fro in mind that, if prayer were an operation which required the faculties to be all at their best, as in the working of abstruse mathematical problems, we should not at such times be able to pray at all.  But, brethren, when the mind is very heavy, then is not the time to give up praying, but rather to redouble our supplications.  Our blessed Lord and Master was driven by distress of mind into the most sad condition; he said, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death;” yet he did not for that reason say, “I cannot pray;” but, on the contrary, he sought the well-known shades of the olive grove, and there unburdened his heavy heart, and poured out his soul like water before the Lord.  Never let us consider ourselves to be too ill or too distracted to pray.

A Christian ought never to be in such a state of mind that he feels bound to say, “I do not feel that I could pray;” or, if he does, let him pray till he feels he can pray.  Not to pray because you do not feel fit to pray is like saying, “I will not take medicine because I am too ill.”  Pray for prayer: pray yourself, by the Spirit’s assistance, into a praying frame.  It is good to strike when the iron is hot, but some make cold iron hot by striking.  We have sometimes eaten till we have gained an appetite, so let us pray till we pray.

God will help you in the pursuit of duty, not in the neglect of it.  The same is the case with regard to spiritual sicknesses. Sometimes it is not merely the body or the mind which is affected, but our inner nature is dull, stupid, lethargic, so that, when it is time for prayer, we do not feel the spirit of prayer.  Moreover, perhaps our faith is flagging, and how shall we pray when faith is so weak?  Possibly we are suspicious as to whether we are the people of God at all, and we are molested by the recollection of our shortcomings.  Now the tempter will whisper, “Do not pray just now; your heart is not in a fit condition for it.”  My dear brother, you will not become fit for prayer by keeping away from the mercy-seat, but to lie groaning or breathing at its foot is the best preparation for pleading before the Lord.

We are not to aim at a self-wrought preparation of our hearts that we may come to God aright, but “the preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, are from the Lord.”  If I feel myself disinclined to pray, then is the time when I need to pray more than ever.  Possibly, when the soul leaps and exults in communion with God, it might more safely refrain from prayer than at those seasons when it drags heavily in devotion.  Alas! my Lord, does my soul go wandering away from thee?  Then, come back my heart, I will drag thee back by force of grace, I will not cease to cry till the Spirit of God has made thee return to thine allegiance.  What, my Christian brother, because thou feelest idle, is that a reason why thou shouldst stay thine hand, and not serve thy God?  Nay, but away with thine idleness, and resolutely bend thy soul to service.  So, under a sense of prayerlessness, be more intent on prayer.  Repent that thou canst not repent, groan that thou canst not groan, and pray until thou dost pray; in so doing God will help thee.

But, it may be objected, that sometimes we are placed in great difficulty as to circumstances, so that we may be excused from prayer.  Brethren, there are no circumstances in which we should cease to pray in some form or other.  “But I have so many cares.”  Who among us has not?  If we are never to pray till all our cares are over, surely then we shall either never pray at all, or pray when we have no more need for it.  What did Abram do when he offered sacrifice to God?  When the patriarch had slaughtered the appointed creatures, and laid them on the altar, certain vultures and kites came hovering around, ready to pounce upon the consecrated flesh.  What did the patriarch do then?  “When the fowls came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away.”  So must we ask for grace to drive our cares away from our devotions.

That was a wise direction which the prophet gave to the poor woman when the Lord was about to multiply her oil.  “Go, take the cruse,” he said, “pour out the oil, and fill the borrowed vessels;” but what did he also say?  “Shut the door upon thee.”  If the door had been open, some of her gossiping neighbors would have looked in, and said, “What are you doing?  Do you really hope to fill all these jars out of that little oil cruse?  Why, woman, you must be mad!”  I am afraid she would not have been able to perform that act of faith if the objectors had not been shut out.  It is a grand thing when the soul can bolt the doors against distractions, and keep out those intruders; for then it is that prayer and faith will perform their miracle, and our soul shall be filled with the blessing of the Lord.  Oh, for grace to overcome circumstances, and, at least to breathe out prayer, if we cannot reach to a more powerful form of it!

Perhaps, however, you declare that your circumstances are more difficult than I can imagine, for you are surrounded by those who mock you, and, besides, Satan himself molests you. Ah! then, dear brother or sister, under such circumstances, instead of restraining prayer, be ten times more diligent.  Your position is pre-eminently perilous, you cannot afford to live away from the throne of grace, do not therefore attempt it.  As to threatened persecution, pray in defiance of it.  Remember how Daniel opened his window, and prayed to his God as he had done aforetime.  Let the God of Daniel be your God in the chamber of prayer, and he will be your God in the lion’s den.  As for the devil, be sure that nothing will drive him away like prayer.  That couplet is correct which declares that —

“Satan trembles when he sees

The weakest saint upon his knees.”

Whatever thy position, if thou canst not speak, cry; if thou canst not cry, groan, if thou canst not groan, let there be “groanings which cannot be uttered;” and if thou canst not even rise to that point, let thy prayer be at least a breathing, — a vital, sincere desire, the outpouring of thine inner life in the simplest and weakest form, and God will accept it.  In a word, when you cannot pray as you would, take care to pray as you can.

II. But now, a second word of instruction.  It is clear from the text, from many other passages of Scripture, and from general observation, that THE BEST OF MEN HAVE USUALLY FOUND THE GREATEST FAULT WITH THEIR OWN PRAYERS.

This arises from the fact that they present living prayers in real earnest, and feel far more than they can express.  A mere formalist can always pray so as to please himself.  What has he to do but to open his book, and read the prescribed words, or bow his knee, and repeat such phrases as suggest themselves to his memory or his fancy?  Like the Tartarian Praying Machine, give but the wind and the wheel, and the business is fully arranged.  So much knee-bending and talking, and the prayer is done.  The formalist’s prayers are always good, or, rather, always bad, alike.  But the living child of God never offers a prayer which pleases himself; his standard is above his attainments; he wonders that God listens to him, and though he knows he will be heard for Christ’s sake, yet he accounts it a wonderful instance of condescending mercy that such poor prayers as his should ever reach the ears of the Lord God of Sabbath.

If it be asked in what respect holy men find fault with their prayers, we reply, that they complain of the narrowness of their desires. O God, thou hast bidden me open my mouth wide, and thou wilt fill it, but I do not open my mouth!  Thou art ready to bestow great things upon me, but I am not ready to receive great things. I am straitened, but it is not in thee; I am straitened in my own desires.  Dear brethren, when we read of Hugh Latimer on his knees perpetually crying out, “O God, give back the gospel to England,” and sometimes praying so long that he could not rise, being an aged man, and they had to lift him up from the prison-floor, and he would still keep on crying, “O God, give back the gospel to poor England,” we may well wonder that some of us do not pray in the same way.  The times are as bad as Latimer’s, and we have as great need to pray as he had, “O God, drive away this Popery once again, and give back the gospel to England.”  Then, think of John Knox.  Why, that man’s prayers were like great armies for power, and he would wrestle all night with God that he would kindle the light of the gospel in Scotland.  He averred that he had gained his desire, and I believe he had, and that the light which burns so brightly in Scotland is much to be attributed to that man’s supplications.

We do not pray like these men; we have no heart to ask for great things.  A revival is waiting, the cloud is hovering over England, and we do not know how to bring it down.  Oh, that God may find some true spirits who shall be as conductors to bring down the fire divine!  We want it much, but our poor breathings – they do not come to much more – have no force, nor expansiveness, no great-heartedness, no prevalence in them.

Then, how far we fail in the matter of faith! We do not pray as if we believed.  Believing prayer is a grasping and a wrestling, but ours is a mere puffing and blowing, a little breathing,-not much more.  God is true, and we pray to him as if he were false.  He means what he says, and we treat, his Word as if it were spoken in jest.  The master-fault of our prayer is want of faith.

How often do we lack earnestness! Such men as Luther had their will of heaven because they would have it.  God’s Spirit made them resolute in intercession, and they would not come away from the mercy-seat till their suit was granted; but we are cold, and consequently feeble, and our poor, poor prayers, in the prayer-meeting, in the closet, and at the family altar, languish and almost die.

How much, alas, is there of impurity of motive to mar our prayers!  We ask for revival, but we want our own church to got the blessing, that we may have the credit of it.  We pray God to bless our work, and it is because we wish to hear men say what good workers we are.  The prayer is good in itself, but our smutty fingers spoil it.  Oh, that we could offer supplication as it should be offered!  Blessed be God, there is One who can wash our prayers for us; but, truly, our very tears need to be wept over, and our prayers want praying over again.  The best thing we ever do needs to be washed in the fountain filled with blood, or God can only look upon it as a sin.

Another fault good men see in their supplications is this, that they stand at such a distance from God in praying, they do not draw near enough to him.  Are not some of you oppressed with a sense of the distance there is between you and God?  You know there is a God, and you believe he will answer you; but it is not always that you come right up to him, even to his feet, and, as it were, lay hold upon him, and say, “O my Father, hearken to the voice of thy chosen, and let the cry of the blood of thy Son come up before thee!”  Oh, for prayers which enter within the veil, and approach to the mercy-seat!  Oh, for petitioners who are familiar with the cherubim, and the brightness which shines between their wings!  May God help us to pray better! But this I feel sure of, you who plead most prevalently are just those who will think the least of your own prayers, and be most grateful to God that he deigns to listen to you, and most anxious that he would help you to pray after a nobler sort.

III. A third lesson is this, THE POWER OF PRAYER IS NOT TO BE MEASURED BY ITS OUTWARD EXPRESSION.

A breathing is a prayer from which God does not hide his ear.  It is a great truth undoubtedly, and full of much comfort too, that our prayers are not powerful in proportion to their expression; for, if so, the Pharisee would have succeeded, since he evidently had greater gifts than the Publican had.  I have no doubt, if there had been a regular prayer meeting, and the Pharisee and the Publican had attended, we should have called on the Pharisee to pray.  I do not think the people of God would have enjoyed his prayer, nor have felt any kinship of spirit with him; and yet, very naturally, on account of his gifts, he would have taken upon himself to engage in public devotion; or, if that Pharisee would not have done so, I have heard of other Pharisees who would.  No doubt the man’s spirit was bad, but then his expression was good.  He could put his oration so neatly, and pour it out so accurately.  Let all men know that God does not care for that.  The sigh of the Publican reached his ear, and won the blessing but the boastful phrases of the Pharisee wore an abomination unto him.

If our prayers were forcible according to their expression, then rhetoric would be more valuable than grace, and a scholastic education would be better than sanctification; but it is not so.  Some of us may be able to express ourselves very fluently from the force of natural gifts, but it should always be to us an anxious question whether our prayer is a prayer which God will receive; for we ought to know, and must know by this time, that we often pray best when we stammer and stutter, and we pray worst when words come rolling like a torrent, one after another.  God is not moved by words; they are but a noise to him.  He is only moved by the deep thought and the heaving emotion which dwell in the innermost spirit.  It were a sorry business for you, who are poor, if God only heard us according to the beauty of our utterances; for it may be that your education was so neglected that there is no hope of your ever being able to speak grammatically; and, besides, it may be, from your limited information, that you could not use the phrases which sound to well.  But the Lord hears the poor, and the ignorant, and the needy; he loves to hear their cry.  What cares he for the grammar of the prayer?  It is the soul of it that he wants; and if you cannot string three words of the Queen’s English together correctly, yet, if your soul can breathe itself out before the Most High anyhow, if it be but warm, hearty, sincere, earnest petitioning, there is power in your prayer, and none the less power in it because of its broken words, nor would it be an advantage to you, so far as the Lord is concerned, if those words were not broken, but were well composed.

Ought not this to comfort us, then?  Even if we are gifted with facility of expression, we sometimes find that our power of utterance fails us.  Under very heavy grief, a man cannot speak as he was wont to do.   Circumstances can make the most eloquent tongue grow slow of speech; it matters not, your prayer is as good as it was before.  You call upon God in public, and you sit down, and think that your confused prayer was of no service to the church.  You know not in what scales God weighs your prayer; not by quantity, but by quality, not by the outward dress of verbiage, but by the inner soul and the intense earnestness that was in it does he compute its value.  Do you not sometimes rise from your knees in your little room, and say, “I do not think I have prayed, I could not feel at home in prayer?”  Nine times out of every ten, those prayers are most prevalent with God which we think are the least acceptable; but when we glory in our prayer, God will have nothing to do with it.  If you see any beauty in your own supplication, God will not; for you have evidently been looking at your prayer, and not at him.  But when your soul sees so much his glory that she cries, “How shall I speak unto thee, I who am but dust and ashes?” when she sees so much his goodness that she is hampered in expression by the depth of her own humiliation, oh, then it is that your prayer is best.  There may be more prayer in a groan than in an entire liturgy; there may be more acceptable devotion in a tear that damps the floor of yonder pew than in all the hymns we have sung, or in all the supplications which we have uttered.  It is not the outward, it is the inward; it is not the lips, it is the heart which the Lord regards; if you can only breathe, still your prayer is accepted by the Most High.

I desire that this truth may come home to any one of you who says, “I cannot pray.”  It is not true.  If it were necessary that, in order to pray, you should talk for a quarter of an hour together, or that you should say pretty things, why then I would admit that you could not pray; but if it is only to say from your heart, “God be merciful to me a sinner;” ay, and if prayer is not saying anything at all, but desiring, longing, hoping for mercy, for pardon, for salvation, no man may say, “I cannot,” unless he is honest enough to add, “I cannot because I will not; I love my sins too well, and have no faith in Christ; I do not desire to be saved.”  If you will to pray, O my hearer, you can pray! He who gives the will joins the ability to it.

And oh! let me say, do not sleep this night until you have tried and proved the power of prayer.  If you feel a burden on your heart, tell the Lord of it.  Cover your face, and speak with him.  Even that you need not do, for I suppose that Hannah did not cover her face when Eli saw her lips move, and supposed that, she was drunken.  Nay, your lips need not even move; your soul can now say, “Save me, my God, convince me of sin, lead me to the cross; save me to-night; let me not and another day as thine enemy; let me not go into the cares of another week unabsolved, with thy wrath hanging over me like a thunder-cloud!  Save me, save me, O my God!”  Such prayers, though utterly wordless, shall not be powerless, but shall be heard in heaven.

IV. We will close with a fourth practical lesson, FEEBLE PRAYERS ARE HEARD IN HEAVEN.

Why is it that feeble prayers are understood of God and heard in heaven?  There are three reasons.

First, the feeblest prayer, if it be sincere, is written by the Holy Spirit upon the heart, and God will always own the handwriting of the Holy Spirit. Frequently, certain kind friends from Scotland send me for the Orphanage some portions of what one of them called the other day “filthy lucre,” — namely, dirty £1 notes. Now these £1 notes certainly look as if they were of small value.  Still, they bear the proper signature, and they pass well enough, and I am very grateful for them.  Many a prayer that is written on the heart by the Holy Spirit seems written with faint ink, and, moreover, it appears to be blotted and defiled by our imperfection; but the Holy Spirit can always read his own handwriting.  He knows his own notes; and when he has issued a prayer, he will not disown it.  Therefore, the breathing which the Holy Ghost works in us will be acceptable with God.

Moreover, God, our ever-blessed Father, has a quick ear to hear the breathing of any of his children. When a mother has a sick child, it is marvelous how quick her ears become while attending it.  Good woman, we wonder she does not fall asleep.  If you hired a nurse, it is ten to one she would.  But the dear child, in the middle of the night, does not need to cry for water, or even speak; there is a little quick breathing, who will hear it!  No one would except the mother; but her ears are quick, for they are in her child’s heart.  So, if there is a heart in the world that longs for God, God’s ear is already in that poor sinner’s heart.  He will hear it.  There is not a good desire on earth but the Lord has heard it.  I recollect when, at one time, I was a little afraid to preach the gospel to sinners as sinners, and yet I wanted to do so, so I used to say, “If you have but a millionth part of a desire, come to Christ.”  I dare say more than that now; but, at the same time, I will say that at once, if you have a millionth part of a desire, if you have only a little breathing, if you desire to be reconciled, if you desire to be pardoned, if you would be forgiven, if there is only half a good thought formed in your soul, do not check it, do not stifle it, and do not think that God will reject it.

And, then, there is another reason, namely, that the Lord Jesus Christ is always ready to take the most imperfect prayer, and perfect it for us. If our prayers had to go up to heaven as they are, they would never succeed; but they find a Friend on the way, and therefore they prosper.  A poor person has a petition to be sent in to some government personage, and if he had to write is himself, it would puzzle all the officers in Downing Street to make out what he meant; but he is wise enough to find out a friend who can write, or he comes round to his minister, and says, “Sir, will you make this petition right for me?  Will you put it into good English, so that it can be presented?  And then the petition goes in a very different form.  Even thus, the Lord Jesus Christ takes our poor prayers, fashions them over again, and presents the petition with the addition of his own signature, and the Lord sends us answers of peace.  The feeblest prayer in the world is heard when it has Christ’s seal to it.  I mean, he puts his precious blood upon it; and wherever God sees the blood of Jesus, he must and will accept the desire which it endorses.  Go thou to Jesus, sinner, even if thou canst not pray, and let the breathing of thy soul be, “Be merciful to me, wash me, cleanse me, save me,” and it shall be done; for God will not hear your prayer so much as hear his Son’s blood, “which speaketh better things than that of Abel.”  A louder voice than yours shall prevail for you, and your feeble breathings shall come up to God covered over with the omnipotent pleadings of the great High Priest who never asks in vain.

I have been aiming thus to comfort those distressed ones who say they cannot pray; but, ere; I close, I must add, how inexcusable are those who, knowing all this, continue, prayerless, Godless, and Christless!  If there were no mercy to be had, you could not be blamed for not having it.  If there were no Savior for sinners, a sinner might be excused for remaining in his sin.  But there is a fountain, and it is open; why then wash ye not in it?

Mercy is to be had “without money and without price,” — it is to be had by asking for it.  Sometimes poor men are shut up in the condemned cell, sentenced to be hanged; but suppose they could have a free pardon by asking for it, and they did not do so, who would pity them?  God will give his blessing to everyone who is moved to seek for it sincerely as his hands on this one sole and only condition, that the soul will trust in Jesus; and even that is not a condition, for he gives repentance and faith, and enables sinners to believe in his dear Son.

Behold Christ crucified, the saddest and yet the gladdest sight the sun ever beheld!  Behold the eternal Son of God made flesh, and bleeding out his life!  A surpassing marvel of woe and love!  A look at him will save you.  Though ye are on the borders of the grave, and on the brink of hell, by one look at Jesus crucified your guilt shall be cancelled, your debts for ever discharged before the throne of God, and yourselves led into joy and peace. Oh, that you would give that look!  Breathe the prayer, “Lord, give me the faith of thine elect, and save me with a great salvation!”  Though it be only breathing, yet, as the old Puritan says, when God feels the breath of his child upon his face, he smiles; and he will feel your breath, and smile on you, and bless you.  May he do so, for his name’s sake!  Amen.

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