Part 3
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Now, friends, you can all have this union. He is no respecter of persons. He has bought it for us. He saw our weakness. He contemplated our moral inability. He need not have come if we could have known God by the Law. If that old covenant had been perfect, there would have been no room for a second. It brought us not into the full realization and enjoyment of God, but the new covenant does. It cleanses the conscience from dead works to serve the living God, and God is henceforth revealed to His people, and they walk with Him. 'If a man love Me, he will keep My words; and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him and make Our abode with him.' And when a man has got the Father and the Son, he is a match for Satan and all his forces. Union with Christ! Oh! do you think this is a mere allegory of the Apostle's? It is a beautiful illustration. When He delivers us from the condemning, reigning power of the Law, we become married to Jesus Christ. Then we get a power to produce, in our affections, and hearts, and lives, and all about us, such things as God delights in. Now, mark, all through the New Testament, and, indeed, the Bible, no truth is taught with greater force and frequency than this, that without a vital union of soul with Christ, all ceremonies, creeds, beliefs, professions, church ordinances, are sounding brass and tinkling cymbals, and all who trust in them will be deceived. This is the very essence of the Gospel. This is what He came for, and (Oh! how my heart bleeds to think and say it) all who do not attain to this real vital union with Him will be lost. Everything else falls short of our need and the purpose and end of the Gospel of Christ. He came on purpose for us to have this union with Himself. Neither circumcision, nor uncircumcision, nor anything else availeth anything, but this faith, which worketh by love, and brings the Spirit of Christ into our hearts. Oh! bear with me; dear friends, have you got it? Have you got this vital union with Christ? Are you bringing forth fruit unto God? If not, I beseech you give up daubing yourselves with untempered mortar, and trying to make yourselves believe you are right, when you are all wrong. However much desire, purpose, hope, aspiration, struggle, or whatever else you have, if you have not attained to this, you are not saved yet, and you are not in the Kingdom. In conclusion, 'bring forth fruit unto God,' or, as the Apostle has it, 'having your fruit unto Holiness and the end everlasting life'--and in another place, for the 'end of the commandment,' the purpose of the commandment, the ultimatum of the commandment, 'is charity,' love, 'out of a pure heart,' and so in many other passages; but we just take these at random. The result! What is the result? 'That we may bring forth fruit unto God.' Jesus Christ in this union recognizes the fact that we are still in the body; still in the world; and that we are open to the attacks of Satan. He knows--has foreseen, and has provided for, the temptations of the flesh, that is, the temptations which come to us through our natural appetites, and instincts, and desires, as they came to Him. He was hungry after enduring the great temptation in the wilderness. There was no sin in being hungry. He was intensely hungry, for He had nerves, and a brain, and a heart, as we have. He was a perfect man, and He suffered all the consequences of that lengthened strain upon His nervous system, and the Devil took advantage of the existence of that intensely excited condition of His body by tempting Him unlawfully to gratify it. For he said, 'Command these stones that they be made bread.' This was unlawful under the circumstances (we will not stop now to inquire why), and, therefore, He said, 'Get thee behind Me, Satan.' He would rather suffer the hunger than unlawfully gratify it, and, therefore, He did not commit sin. It matters not (and this will meet the case of some who have written to me) how intensely excited any physical appetite may be--that is not sin. The more you suffer through the excitement of the physical appetite, of whatever kind it may be, the more Jesus Christ sympathizes with you, for He was tempted in all points, like as we are, yet without sin; and if you endure temptation, He will sympathize with you, more than with the man who does not have to endure and resist. You do not sin because of the appetite merely being excited. I think Satan gets some sincere souls to bring themselves into condemnation when God does not condemn them. If you resist as He did; if you say, 'Get thee behind me, Satan'--you sin not. What was Eve's sin? Unlawful selfgratification. The Devil might have tempted her until now, if she had lived so long; but if she had steadily resisted him, she would not have brought sin into the world. Under the Law you see that it is sin, and you struggle against it, but you have no power to resist, and down you go. United to Christ, you see that it is sin, and you have power to resist, and you resist it, and the Devil runs away; and that is the difference. You are married to a new husband now, and He is more than a match for the old Devil. He is a conquered foe, while you abide in Christ. He can torment,
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harass, and excite you, and stimulate your natural appetites, but he cannot make you sin, while you abide in Christ. 'He that is begotten of God keepeth himself and that Wicked One toucheth him not.' 'Ye are strong and have overcome the Wicked One.' Then, again, we are open to the temptations of the world, but this is provided for. Jesus Christ knows that we are susceptible to the liking of nice things like other people, and great things, and ambitious schemes, and the world's praises and censures. God's people are only sadly too familiar with this, and the weak part of their nature would respond to it, and they would fall; but now they are united to Christ, and He opens their eyes to see that it is Satan and the world. When the Devil takes them to the top of the pinnacle, and shows them all the glory of the world, he tries to make them think it would be very nice to have it; he tempts them to think it hard that they should be regarded as such paltry and mean people, because they belong to Christ; but when they are thoroughly and truly united to Jesus, He gives them power to say, as He did, 'Get thee behind Me, Satan,' for it is written, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and Him ONLY shalt thou serve'--not Him and the world. Oh! thank God, if you have got there. Praise the Lord, if you understand that. Then he comes not only through these avenues, but he comes again with direct, subtle, spiritual influence, with his old insinuation, as he came to Eve, and says, 'Hath God said' this, or that? He tries to inject doubts as to God's goodness and veracity into the believer's soul, as he used to do under the Law, and under the Law the convicted sinner's soul used to swell with rebellion, and say, 'Yes, it is hard and cruel.' Now, Satan still comes and vomits these thoughts, and tries to excite these ill feelings and these chargings of God foolishly in the believer's soul, but by virtue of his union with Christ, who came not to do His own will, but His Father's, and who spoke only the things that His Father bade Him, the believer says, 'Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.' 'Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?'--and the Devil is gone. And then when the Devil is foiled at all these points, he tries higher ground. 'Really you are a wonderful Christian--you are. You have had special grace, for surely very few people can have resisted the amount of temptation that you have. Really you must be one of God's specially favoured ones. Now cast yourself down. It is written, "He shall give His angels charge concerning you."' Spiritual presumption next. When he is foiled through the world, and the flesh, and the Devil, and then he doffs his old robe and comes as an angel of light. But the soul's Bridegroom is hard by, and He says, 'Be not ignorant of Satan's devices. Behold I am thy Salvation. Trust and be not afraid.' And so the soul refuses to cast itself into unnecessary troubles, and is content to abide in, and walk with its Lord. That is how He gives us the victory. He shows us Satan's devices, and gives us power. I cannot tell you how. We don't know how. We only know that He gives it to us, and we only know that if one instant separated from Him we fall and become as other men. We only know that in those seasons when our faith has relaxed its grasp, we have gone down in the mud and been overcome as others. It is by faith we stand, and while, like Peter, we keep our eye on Him, and hold Him fast, the waves may roar, and the winds may howl, but He holds us by virtue of this union, and we bring forth fruit unto God. We have power over the Devil. He said, 'I will give you power over all the power of the enemy.' This is the deliverance of the SAINTS. This is the life of the saints. This is the fight of faith. THIS IS THE JOY OF SALVATION. This is the SORT OF RELIGION THAT DOES TO DIE WITH!!! People all over the land are astounded at our poor, weak, illiterate Salvation Army Soldiers. A gentleman, in a Meeting on Easter Monday, a leading man of thought and experience in the Holiness world, who was there all day--when my daughter said, 'Why don't you speak?'--said, 'One feels as if one can't speak in these Meetings.' 'Why?' These people have such unction from the Holy One that they are wiser than their teachers. Another gentleman, of considerable position, too, in the religious world, said, 'I feel like getting down at their feet. I feel as if they could teach me.' How is it that they have such power--these babes in intellect and intelligence? All over the land people say this to me. People who talk and go ahead in other meetings, when they get into our Meetings, say, 'I can't. They are so far ahead of me that, to tell you the truth, I have nothing to say.' I say, the Lord have mercy upon you, and make haste and come up after them. Only get down from your high mightiness as low as these people, and you will get it. It is not because they are poor and illiterate, that they have power, but because they are babes in spirit. Even as Christ said, 'I thank Thee, O Father, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.' The simple spirit, the teachable, believing soul-- Oh! how much more it learns of God, in one hour's precious communion, than Doctors of Divinity learn in weeks of close study, who have not got it, because it is the SPIRIT that teaches the things of
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God. This is union with Jesus that bringeth forth fruit unto God, and, Oh! the wonderful things it enables us to bring forth. If you would all follow me, as far as I have gone this afternoon, and make the resolution I made at fifteen years of age, not to be put off with theories, but that you will KNOW THE LORD, that you will have this Divine union, and that you will never rest till you get it and know you have it--if we could all get thus far by next Sunday--what happiness there would be amongst you. There would be some Hallelujahs. Many of you would be surprised--how you would find your tongues. A gentleman once said to me, 'I never did shout in my life, but upon my word I couldn't help it.' I said, 'Amen. It's time, then, you began.' I hope it may be the same with many of you. When the Lord comes to His Temple and fills it with His glory, you won't know what to do. You must find vent somewhere, or you will be as the poor old negro said he was--'Ready to bust his waistcoat.' We feel so about temporal things. People drop down dead with joy. People shriek with grief. People's hearts stand still with wonder at the news they have heard, perhaps from some prodigal boy. I heard of a mother, not long ago, whom some one injudiciously told of the sudden return of her son, who dropped down dead, and never spoke. And when the Master comes to His Temple, that glorious blessed Holy Saviour, whom you profess so to long after and to love, and who has been absent so many years, and whom you have been seeking after with strong crying and tears, when He comes, do you think it will be too much to shout your song, or go on your face, or do any extravagant thing? Oh! no, if there is reality, you cannot help yourself. The manifestation will be according to your nature. One will fall down and weep in quietness, and the other will get up and shout and jump. You cannot help it. I have read of two martyrs one of whom rejoiced in the realization of God's presence, and the other was in darkness, yet did not deny his Lord. He continued in the way of obedience, and the other was encouraging him to hope and believe that the Master would come; but He had not come, when they started from the dungeon to the stake; so they fixed upon a sign, and the one said to the other, 'If He comes, you will give me the sign on the road.' The Master did come, but the martyr could not confine himself to the sign. He shouted, raising his arms to his fellow-martyr, 'He's come, He's come, He's come.' He couldn't help it. When He comes you won't be ashamed who knows it. When you really get a living Christ for your husband, you will be prouder than the bride, you will have got a husband worth being proud of, and you will love to acknowledge and praise Him, and the day is coming when you will crown Him before all the host of Heaven. The Lord help you to accept Him, and put away everything that hinders His coming. Amen.
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THE FRUITS OF UNION WITH CHRIST
ROMANS viii. 4.
--'That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.' WE dealt, on Sunday week, with 'What the Law could not do'; and last Sabbath afternoon we dealt with 'What Jesus Christ could do,' by uniting us with Himself and giving us power. I want, this afternoon, to direct your attention to the fruits of this union--THE LAW FULFILLED IN US. What does it mean? FIRST.--I want just to say two or three words about Law in the abstract. There seems to me to be an awful misconception of the Apostle's writings respecting the Law, caused by 'wresting' and misapplying what he says on justification by faith. People should bear in mind that much of this Epistle, and some others, was written on purpose to meet the extreme legal notions of the Jews, who had no other idea of righteousness than that of their own efforts to keep the Law (Romans x. 3), and that, therefore, the Apostle was bound, as any other writer would be in such circumstances, to put the extreme view on the other side. Many, not considering this, separate these passages from their explanatory connections, and from all the rest of the Word of God, and preach, nowadays, that we have nothing to do with the Law. Hence, there has come to be a spirit of Antinomianism abroad in the land, compared with which the Antinomianism of bygone ages was harmless. God helping me, I shall never cease to lift up my voice against it. Now please, first note that there is, in this writing, talking, and singing about the Law a great deal of mental fog and confusion. People should be very careful, when they come to such matters as these, to be clear in their own minds as to what the Apostle is writing about; but I find frequently in such writings and songs a total misapprehension as to the meaning of the Apostle, and a total confounding of the Moral with the Ceremonial Law. Now, always mind, when you read anything about the Law, to examine and find out which Law is meant, whether it is the great Moral Law, which never has been, and never can be, abrogated, or the Ceremonial Law, which, in Christ, confessedly was done away. Mind which, because your Salvation may depend upon that point. If you make a mistake there, you may be lost through it; therefore, be very careful. Now, I say that people confound these, and, consequently, there is a perfect hotch-potch of theology in this day, which I defy anybody to understand. People do not know what they are to believe, or what they are not to believe. As a gentleman said, not long ago, 'It is confusion confounded. I go to one meeting and hear this, and then I go to another meeting and hear that, and, very often, in the very same meeting, the speakers will get up and flatly contradict each other!' 'Exactly,' I said, 'but you have got the Bible. Why don't you study that for yourself? Why not use your own common sense--why not let your conscience speak?' 'But,' said he, 'why do not our ministers do it?' 'Because,' said I, 'many of them do not know it themselves. Let your conscience speak, and God will not let you go wrong.' It is an honest heart people want, and then they will get the light. People sing about the Law, talk about the Law, and glory in being free from the Law, in a lawless, Antinomian spirit, as far from anything Paul ever wrote or meant, as Hell is from Heaven! Oh, it is an awfully bad sign, when people are out of love with the Law of God. David made his boast in the Law of his God, he meditated on it by day and by night, and its precepts were his delight; he loved it with all his soul, and so did David's Son, and He is too much in love with His Father's Law and Will to hold fellowship with anybody who does not love it. As He said to the Jews, 'He that is of God, heareth God's words; ye, therefore, hear them not, because ye are not of God'; and, again, of His disciples, 'For I have given unto them the words which Thou gavest me.' So, mind, if you do not love the words, the expression of the will of God, you do not love God, and if you do not love the Father, neither do you love the Son. This is the very accusation which He brought against the Jews, that they had made void His Father's Law. Let us mind, then, the distinction always made between the great Moral and the Ceremonial Law. In the second place: I want you to note, that when you have ascertained that the Apostle is speaking of the Moral Law--and he appears to speak disparagingly of it--he is always referring to its inability to justify a sinner, or to produce spiritual life. This, he says, it could not do; but he never speaks disparagingly of it as the guide and standard of spiritual life, after life is given. No! he goes back to it as the only standard, and so did Jesus Christ. They continually refer to the Law as the highest expression of the holiness and righteousness of God, and as the standard by which we are to set our
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souls and consciences. What other standard have we but the Law? How am I to judge of my thoughts, words, and actions but by the Law? Where has Jesus Christ given me any other gauge? And if people would but read on, and let the Apostle explain himself, they would understand him better, and not get into such tanglements and mazes! Paul is most careful to guard himself against the Antinomian conclusions which he saw might be drawn from isolated parts of his writings. He says, 'Do we, then, make void the Law through faith? nay, we establish the Law.' And, again, 'Wherefore the Law is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and good'; and, again, when he says, that 'To them that are without Law He became as without Law'; he guards himself by a parenthesis, 'Being not without Law to God, but under the Law to Christ.' That is under the great universal Law of love, which fulfils all other law; for 'Love is the fulfilling of the Law.' Love is the very spirit and essence of the Law. The Law is to me the highest expression of what I OUGHT to be, in my relations to my Creator and in my relations to my fellow-creatures. Now, can what ought to be ever be abrogated? Does it stand to sense? Can the rightness of things ever be altered? Can God ever make two and two five, and can God make evil good and good evil? He can make an evil person good, by saving him from the evil and making him good; but God cannot make evil itself good, and good evil, and He never professes to do it. Oh, this confounding of things! how it does ruin and befog poor souls: How can it ever be less the duty of the creature to love and serve the Creator, than it was when he first came pure and spotless from His hand? How can it ever be less my duty to love my neighbour as myself, than it was at the beginning, or how can I satisfy my conscience with less than loving all men with a pure, benevolent love such as God bears to them, in my measure and according to my capacity? The same standard remains, and the difference between God's scheme of Salvation and the scheme of Salvation so widely preached now, is that man's scheme proposes to get me into Heaven without fulfilling this Law, while God's scheme proposes to give me power to FULFIL IT. Alas! I am afraid many will not find out which is the right one, man's or God's, till they get to the Judgment Seat and find it out too late! Now, I say, that there is not a word, rightly understood and interpreted by correlative Scriptures, in the whole New Testament that disparages or ignores or sets aside the Law of God--not a word! Do you think the Apostle was as unphilosophical as many nowadays? Did he not know what he wrote? Is he not as clear as a bell? And now he comes to the climax of his argument, the great end and purpose towards which he has been advancing in his preceding reasonings: 'THAT the righteousness of the Law might be FULFILLED in us.' As though he had said, 'This great and glorious end which was lost in Adam shall be re-found and restored.' So the old serpent shall be circumvented at last, and God's people shall be able to fulfil this beautiful ideal of rectitude and righteousness which God has planned for man--Jesus Christ shall destroy the work of the Devil, restore man, and enable him to walk in the light, even as He is in the light. What the Law tried to do by a restraining power from without, the Gospel does by an inspiring power from within. That is the difference. I could not keep it in the letter, but, united to my heavenly Bridegroom, I can keep it in the Spirit. He fills me with His love, and this enables me to keep the Law, for love is the fulfilling of the Law. 'Love worketh no ill to his neighbour' of any kind, and, again, the great Teacher said, 'For all the Law is fulfilled in one word-- Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' If you do that, will you injure your neighbour? See how the Spirit fulfils the Law! If you love your neighbour, will you misrepresent him, cheat him, envy him anything that he possesses or enjoys? 'No,' you say, 'of course not; it is a contradiction.' Very well, then, get this love in your soul and you will fulfil the Law. Love is the fulfilling of the Law, and he that loveth in this sense dwelleth in God and God in him. Love is the fulfilling of the Law, and the great glory of the Gospel of Christ is that it brings us back to love His Law, and as the angels delight in it, and as all holy intelligences delight in it, so we delight in it, and the righteousness of the Law--high, deep, and broad, and long as it is--shall be fulfilled in us, 'who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.' Then, I say, the Apostle evidently considered this fulfilment of the Law of Righteousness in us as the highest end of our existence and of redemption; for, he says, God sent His Son that the righteousness of the Law may be fulfilled in us. Mark, not that its claims shall be abated: Oh! not one jot or tittle shall ever be abated. They cannot. God could not abate them. Not that the righteousness of the Law shall cease to have a claim upon you. Oh! if He could have saved us like that, Christ need not have come at all. He could have saved us without a Mediator. No, no! but that the righteousness of the Law may be FULFILLED in us as it was in Him. That we should be brought to the full stature of men and women in Christ Jesus, that we should have this spirit of our heavenly Bridegroom, by which we fulfil the Law, and the servant, in his measure, shall be as his Lord.
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How? As I explained, last Sunday, first: We shall be delivered from the reigning, condemning power of the Law by virtue of an infinite, vicarious sacrifice punished in our stead, and then, married to Him, we shall serve in the newness of the spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. I want to be eminently and intensely practical, for the sake of the hungering and thirsting souls who are asking me in their letters, 'Tell me how? Help me?' Just let us look at this result (in fourth verse). People talk about glorifying Christ; but, it seems to me, this does glorify Him. It seems to me here is something to glory in, that He has circumvented the old serpent and snatched the prey from his teeth, and restored it, and enabled man, after all, to fulfil the righteousness of God. Not only in what Christ does for us; but what He does IN US, that God should look on you and say, 'I am well pleased. There is nothing there contrary to My will.' He will give you the testimony, as He did Enoch, that your ways please Him, that your thoughts please Him, that your motives, and purposes and desires, and actions please Him. That is what the Gospel proposes to do. We have seen how this spirit is produced. Now let us look at the fruits, and first: This fruit is brought forth in THE AFFECTIONS! Those people who are thus united to Christ fulfil the Law in their affections. You know it is commonly said that if you get hold of the affections of a man or a woman you get hold of him or her. So you do. This is the touchstone, and there is nothing in which I have been so grieved and disappointed as in the manifest want of quickness, livingness in the affections of God's people for Him. Oh! how I have seen this come out. The coldness, the unsympathetic character of a great many people's religion, and yet people whom one would not like to unchristianize. I cannot explain it by any better term than want of quickness. I have often been struck with the difference when you touch individuals on some point that affects them personally, and on those which relate to the Kingdom of God, and have been tempted to say with the Apostle, 'All men seek their own, and not the things that are Jesus Christ's.' Alas! I fear it is very largely so. You talk with a lady about the Salvation of her children's souls, the souls of her neighbours, and her servants, or about the cause of God in general, and she will talk 'good' with you, so to speak, and you will feel, 'yes, it is all very well,' but it doesn't seem to come up from the depths. It seems to come from the throat, so to speak; a sort of superficial, surface kind of thing. But, if a child is dangerously ill, how quick the mother's sympathies, how ready to listen, how willing to do anything that you suggest to help the child. If the business is in danger, if a man has got into difficulties and you can suggest any plan by which he may get out of them, how quickly his attention is aroused. His interest doesn't flag, because the subject touches him to the quick. It is his concern, and just so in many other things. God forbid I should judge all Christians. No, no, no!--there are blessed exceptions. There are many like David--rivers of water do run down their eyes; but I am speaking of the mass of professors. I am afraid that in their affections there is a great deal of this lukewarm superficiality. Why is it? Because such people do not abide in Christ, if ever they were in Him. They do not keep the freshness and the quickness of the Spirit of Jesus. They do not give themselves time to do it for one thing, or care about it for another. We want the constant indwelling of the Holy Spirit to quicken our spiritual perceptions and keep us awake. It is Satan's great desire to rock us to sleep, and there is no quality in which the disciples have been more conspicuous than in going to sleep since the time when the professed watchers went to sleep in the garden; but Jesus, in His mercy and love, is always wakening them. But, oh! this disposition to go to sleep, to lose our quickness of perception. Now, friends, what must you do? You must do as you did at first. Cry and believe till your soul is filled with the love of God. I shall never forget reading, when only fourteen years of age, a sentiment of a precious and valiant soldier of the Lord Jesus, who is now in Glory. Speaking of putting a test, he said that people might easily find out whether they loved God or themselves best: 'Suppose you were in business in a little village, and were doing pretty well, and everything was going smoothly with you; but there was nothing for you to do there for the Kingdom of God, no particular way in which you could serve or glorify God; and, suppose there was another little village hard by, where there was nothing whatever doing for the Kingdom, and you felt it laid upon your soul to go there in order that you might preach to unconverted people and raise a church, and do something for souls. Ah! but you have got a nice business and you don't know whether you would prosper or not in the other village. Now you may know whether you are serving God or yourself first, by this test. If you are serving God, you will be ready to go to that strange village and trust Him with the consequences; but, if you are serving yourself,
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you will stop where you are. The Lord has helped me to apply that many a time to many things besides business, and to keep the Kingdom of God FIRST, as I made up my mind it should be first always--not in time merely, but in degree--all the way through. If I love Him best, I shall feel for Him deepest, and shall act for Him first. If I love Him best, I shall feel for Him more deeply than for my husband or children, near and precious as they are and dearer than my own life a thousand times; but He will be dearer still, and His interests; and if, as Jesus Christ says, His interests require me to sacrifice these precious and beloved ones of my soul, then I shall sacrifice them; for the philosophical reason that I love Him better than I love them, and, therefore, I shall lay them on His altar, to promote His glory. If I understand it, this is the fruit of the Spirit in the affections--God first. I am afraid, in a great many instances, it is husband first, wife first, children first, and, I am afraid, in some cases, business first, and then God may take what there is left and be thankful for that! Now, if you are in this condition you need not expect joy, peace, power. You will never get it if you do. God will have to make you over again before you can get it, and to alter the conditions of His Salvation. Oh! but if you will lay it all on His altar, that is quite another thing. As I said to a lady, a little time ago, 'The Lord can take your husband, if you refuse to give him to Him'; and I am afraid God's people often compel Him to take their darlings, because they make them idols; whereas, if they had laid them on His altar, they might have had them back, as Abraham received back Isaac. I said to a gentleman, 'Mind that God does not burn down your barns, wreck your ships, and take away your riches. God loves your soul enough to do it, if you let these things prevent that whole-hearted consecration which He requires.' We are in His hands. 'Whom He loveth He chasteneth,' and if you want to keep the precious things you have, oh! put them at His feet, and hold them in subordination to Him. First, in your affections! He is a jealous God, and jealousy in God is very much like jealousy in us. It is the same characteristic of mind, only purified from selfishness. He is a jealous God, and if you will love these things better than Him, and if you will not give Him your affections, then He will chastise you, or--what is worse still--He will take His Holy Spirit from you. Fruit in your affections. Oh, if Christ had your affections, how it would operate in everything! The wife would not be always grumbling because the husband had to go out three or four evenings a week on the Lord's errands--only let them be the Lord's errands. The husband would not grudge to give his wife up to go to help to win souls, because it deprived him of her society or a few comforts that she might provide for him if she were near. The parents would not grudge to restrain their children, as Eli did. He did not restrain them from that which they liked, and you know the fruit it brought. Parents who love God best will not allow their children to learn anything which could not be pressed into the service of God. They will not allow them to run with the giddy multitude, to dance, or do anything the Devil might inspire them to desire. 'No!' they will say, 'my children belong to God, and I am going to train them for God and God only.' Bless the Lord, He helped me to make up my mind to do that before I became a mother; and He has helped me to keep that promise (though I have not been as faithful to it as I ought), casting aside resolutely every temptation to the contrary. And now He is giving me the fruit of my self-denial in the souls and labours of my precious children. One after another, as they grow up, they take their natural place in the temple of the Lord, and I believe they shall go out no more for ever. Oh, that parents would do it! Parents might save their children. I know what a mother's feelings are. I know the temptation there is to see them shine in competition with others, and to excel others. I know it all; but I said, 'No; "Get thee behind me, Satan." I will keep them for God'; and He has enabled me to keep them for Him. Bless His holy name! I loved Him better than I loved them, and, much as I loved them (and those who know me know I do love them), I would see them all in a row laid in their coffins before I would sacrifice His interests and lose their souls. Do you love Him best? Test yourself. Do you love Him more than all else? Are you holding everything in subordination to Him? Further, this fruit will come out in our members--our bodies; and oh! there is a deep spiritual meaning which, I trust, many of you know, in those words of the Apostle, 'The body is dead because of sin'; but 'He shall quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit, that dwelleth in you.' It is killed to the Devil, as well as to sin, and all the uses of Satan; but it is quickened by the Spirit for the use of God, so that you can render not only the calves of your lips, but your hands, and eyes, and brain, and heart, and feet, and the whole of your body to Him--your members instruments of righteousness unto God. Hence, such a person will not feel his eyes are his own, to rove at random wherever he lists. Such a person will not feel his tongue is his own, to speak as he pleases. He will 'bridle it,' as James says, when tempted to speak unadvisedly. Such a person will not feel that his hands are his own, to waste the time in which he
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ought to be doing something for God. Such a person will not feel his feet his own, to carry him where he likes, but where his Master would have him go--his whole body consecrated, and, especially, his tongue--consecrated to God, to testify for Him. He will feel that he must feed his body, as my husband often says, on the same principle that a man feeds his horse--to keep it in the best working condition for God--never eating anything that will bring the devils of dyspepsia dancing round his soul. And, not only so, with eating and drinking, but all his surroundings and deportment must be in keeping. It is the Lord's body; and, if you love Him best, you will keep it for Him: as the bride and the bridegroom keep themselves for each other, so you will keep it for Him. This fruit will also appear in our family relations. We shall fulfil the Law to our neighbours. You see, God wants only what we have to give Him. He is not a hard master reaping where He has not sown, and the Great Teacher said, 'This is the first and great commandment,' embracing all the rest, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and mind, and soul, and strength,' and the second is like unto it, 'And thy neighbour as thyself'; and the man who does these is a perfect man, and fulfils the law; and when you have the fullness of love that enables you to love God best and your neighbour as yourself--enables you to do for the souls and bodies of your fellows what you would like that they should do for you, if you changed places, then the Law is fulfilled in you. Such people cannot sit 365 days in the year at the table with unconverted people, and never try to get them saved. Such people cannot abide in the same house with unbelievers, and not make them miserable. Oh, no. The unconverted say, 'It's too wretched to live here. I must get out of this crying and praying for me all day long.' As a servant once said, she couldn't stand it. She had had praying enough at home, without coming there to have it. She did stand it for six weeks, and broke down at the family altar and GOT SAVED, and became a preacher afterwards. This spirit of love will make every unconverted sinner within your reach so miserable that they will have to be converted or run away. How would you do if they were DYING? You would run about in every direction to get a minister. What a pity you did not feel like this twelve years ago. You might have got the sinner converted then, and he have been serving the Lord all the time? But, now he is dying, what a stir you make. What a purely selfish religion that is. You want him saved, so that he may get into HEAVEN, not that he might serve, honour, and glorify God. You don't care at all about that. He might live on in disobedience. Oh, be as much concerned for the honour of God as you are for your friend's Salvation at the last, and then God will know how to save them. This fruit will also appear in your church relations. It will bring forth fruit. As the Apostle says, 'Exhorting one another daily,' not suffering sin in your neighbour; reproving each other, and 'confessing your faults one to the other.' Where is any of it done? I should like very much to attend such a meeting, if you invite me, where Christians really and honestly confess their faults one to the other, and pray for one another, beseeching the Lord to heal them in those particular points where they have failed, telling one another of the deep things of God and talking lovingly and freely to one another as they used to do. It is part of the communion of saints--'exhort one another daily.' The devil is at work daily. The world is plying for us daily. The flesh is pleading daily. Everything evil goes on daily. Why should not this exhorting one another, confessing your faults to one another, and praying for one another go on daily too? Is it a fact that we are each other's keepers? Is it a fact that God will require for our influence over other souls, I believe it. Then in our relations to the world--. But I forestalled this in my address on 'Aggressive Effort.' And now let us go down on our knees before God and ask Him to work this love in us, and give us this spirit, that we may thus FULFIL THIS LAW in all its relations.
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WITNESSING FOR CHRIST
ACTS i. 8 (latter clause).
--'Ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judæa, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.' ACTS v. 32.
--'And ye are His witnesses of these things.' AGAIN and again the same vocation and commission is bestowed upon the apostles and disciples. To the ends of the earth and to the end of time this commission comes down to every one of the Lord's own, for He says: 'Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature; and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.' That embraces us. And to every disciple who has preceded, or is to follow us, is promised His Divine Presence in this glorious work of testifying for Him. God needs witnesses in this world. Why? Because the whole world is in revolt against Him. The world has gone away from God. The world ignores God, denies and contradicts His testimony, misunderstands His character, government, and purposes, and is gone off into utter and universal revolt and rebellion. Now if God is to keep any hold upon man at all, and have any influence with him, He must be represented down here. There was no other way of doing it. If a province of this realm were in anarchy and rebellion, unless there be some persons in the province whose duty it is to represent the King and his Government, it will lapse altogether and be lost to the kingdom for ever. So God must be represented, and, praise His name, He has had His faithful witnesses from the beginning until now. As the apostle says--'He left not Himself without witness.' Down from the days of Enoch, who walked with God, to this present hour, God has always had His true and faithful witnesses. In the worst times there have been some burning and shining lights. Sometimes few and far between, sometimes, like Noah, one solitary man in a whole generation of men, witnessing for God--but one, at least, there has been. God has not left Himself without witness. But Jesus Christ the Son--the well-beloved of the Father--He was the great witness. He came especially to manifest, to testify of, and to reveal the Father to men. This was His great work. He came not to testify of Himself, but of His Father; not to speak His own words, but the words His Father gave Him to speak. He came to reveal God to men. He was the 'Faithful and True Witness.' And when He had to leave the world and go back to His Father, then He commissioned His disciples to take His place, and to be God's witnesses on earth. And Oh! friends, God's real people are His only witnesses. He will not allow angels--we do not know why--to witness for Him here. He has called man to witness for Him--His people--'Ye shall be witnesses unto Me.' Jesus 'witnessed a good confession,' did He not? He witnessed nobly, consistently, bravely of His Father, and sealed His testimony with His blood. The world treated Him as it has treated most of God's faithful witnesses from the beginning: it persecuted Him; it slew Him, as it would every faithful witness for God--if God allowed it--and would leave itself without a single spiritual light: for the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience hath an eternal and devilish hatred of every real, living, spiritual child of God. It hates him as it hates the Son Himself, and it is not the Devil's fault if he does not extinguish and exterminate every such witness. It is because God will not allow him, but holds us, keeps us, saves us, in spite of him. The Lord commissioned, then, His disciples to be His witnesses, and He said--oh! beautiful words, and yet, how much they involve which few understand--'As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so send I them into the world.' Even so: as Thou hast sent Me to be Thy representative in the world, to spend and be spent for Thee, and shed My blood for Thee; if necessary, so send I them; and so He did send them, and they had just the same fare as their Master, and many of them just the same end. But they were faithful witnesses, and they went forward and testified everywhere, to the Jews and to the Gentiles, in the Temple and in the Market Place, by the wayside and in the highways and hedges-
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-they went and testified of this Saviour, and charged the wicked Jews with His crucifixion, and God accompanied their testimony by the Spirit, and thousands upon thousands were converted--turned from their rebellion to God. Now, the fact that witnessing is necessary shows that there is controversy going on in the world as to the things and claims of God--that there are two sides to this. The great mass of mankind say, that God's truth is a lie. They say it virtually, if they do not say it in words; and many thousands of them, alas! in words, also. They deny, many of them, His very existence, and say there is neither Heaven nor Hell--that Jesus Christ was a mere man--that religion is a myth, and that there is no such thing as the knowledge of forgiveness of sins--that this witnessing is a grand delusion of the imagination, and nothing further. Now, Christ calls His people to go and be witnesses to these facts. Witnesses, you know, must deal with facts, not theories--not what they merely think, or suppose, or have heard, but what they know. Now God wants His people to witness to facts--to something that has been done, and is being done--something that is and continues to be--fact. And He wants us to be GOOD witnesses, too. Oh! how much depends upon the character of a witness even in an earthly court. If you can cast a reflection upon the character or the veracity of a witness, you shake his testimony, and take away its value. Oh! how important that Christ's witnesses should be good witnesses-that is, that they should fairly and truly represent Him and His truth--for, if they misrepresent Him, somebody is sure to be damned through their inconsistency--and, how awful to have the blood of souls upon our skirts! To misrepresent a man, or woman, or child, is bad enough, but to misrepresent God!--to show a caricature of the religion of Jesus Christ!--to live a wrong life and still profess to be a Christian, saying to people, virtually, 'Look at me:--the way I live and act--WHAT I AM--this is the religion of Jesus Christ.' I say, such a man had far better have a millstone hanged about his neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea. There would, then, be an end of his mischief; but a false witness on behalf of Jesus Christ is the most mischievous traitor on the face of the earth. He does more harm than a thousand false hostile witnesses against Him. Oh! my friends, to be good witnesses for Jesus Christ. The more a witness is supposed to know of the truth to which he testified, the greater his responsibility. Oh! for a minister to be a bad witness, as some of the prophets of old were. Look at the awful things God says about them that lead His people into the ditch, caring more about the fleece than the sheep--awful! For a mother to be a bad witness in her family, and to take her little children, clinging on to her skirts, right to the edge of the pit! For a master to be a bad witness--to profess to be a Christian, and to be a bad witness before his men; for a Sunday-school teacher to be a bad, inconsistent, false witness of Jesus Christ in his class; for members of Christian Churches to be bad witnesses to one another, and to the world; who can tell the awful results? Oh! it is this inconsistent witnessing that has lowered and lowered the standard of practical Christianity till we have not got any standard left--till the landmarks are so obliterated, that there are not any to be seen. FAITHFUL witnesses! He wants us to be faithful witnesses. I want to note one or two qualifications of a faithful witness, and, oh, may the Holy Spirit help us. The first qualification, then, of a faithful witness, is A personal knowledge of the facts to which he witnesses. If a witness in a court of justice begins to talk of what he thinks, feels, and believes, 'Oh! hush, hush,' says the judge, 'we can't have that; we want to know what you KNOW--what you have seen, heard, and felt of this case'; and these are the sort of witnesses Jesus Christ wants, who can get up and say, 'I KNOW!' The sort of witness that St. Paul was, who could look his judge in the face and say, 'I would that thou wert altogether such as I am, save these bonds.' What an impudent man he must have been, if he was not a sanctified man. What a supreme egotist! Those are the sort of witnesses. How Agrippa must have felt, just then. How the tables were turned. 'Oh, I am turned into the dock, and here is the prisoner taking his seat upon the bench.' That is the sort of witnessing we want. 'I would that thou wert altogether such as I am, except these bonds.' Could you stand up in the dock and say that? Could you stand up in your own house and say it? Could you stand up anywhere and say it? That is what the Lord Jesus Christ wants--people who know, who experience, who realize, who live the things they witness to. This is what the world is dying for--people who can get up and say, 'I KNOW.' The Lord wants people to tell the world they are saved. Can you? They will begin to listen to you then. You will begin to have some effect on them. They will begin to open their eyes and ears, and wonder whether it
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will be possible for God to save them. This is altogether different from a fine-spun theory about religion--this telling them that God has SAVED YOU. Not what we have learned in books. The world is sick of that. I don't wonder at intelligent men flying off from religion. I can make great excuse when I think what many of them have to listen to from Sunday to Sunday. As a gentleman said to me, 'It's enough to sicken anybody. We do get something in The Times, but, upon my word, I can't keep awake at church. It is not that I would not, if I could, but I can't.' Poor fellow! how I pitied him. No! not what is got from books; not a dry, fine-spun theory, from mere hearsay. When a witness begins with what he heard some one say, 'Oh, hush!' says the judge, 'we don't want that! we want to know what you have seen. Keep to the facts.' Jesus Christ wants you to keep to the facts. Tell them, as John says, what you have seen, and heard, and handled, and realized of the truth of God. Personal knowledge! It is wonderful how simple Salvation language is, when you have learnt it by experience and are prepared to speak plainly to the people. Then, a faithful witness must tell the truth, and the whole truth. He must not hold back anything on account of personal inconvenience, suffering, loss, or gain, but must tell the whole truth! Oh! I tremble to think what will be the fate of some who set themselves up as teachers, and who have 'kept back part' of the truth because, to their apprehension, it was not palatable or profitable to mankind. What have I got to do with that? I have to preach the truth--the beautiful, whole, round, diamond, luminous with Divine light, and not a base, muddy, paste imitation, half truths manufactured into damning errors, by which Satan is decoying thousands to Hell. Give men the whole truth--both sides: the side that relates to God; and the side that relates to man; and be done with the nonsense of making God contradict Himself, for 'God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.' If there were contradictions, there would be darkness. No; the darkness is in our own poor, blind, puny brains, and not in God or in His Book. In His Book, rightly interpreted, there is no contradiction whatsoever. The whole truth: the convicting truth as well as the healing truth; the sword as well as the balm; the running in of the Divine knife as well as the pouring in of the Divine oil. As Paul says, in the 26th chapter and 18th verse, 'To open their eves, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins.' He says he preached to the Jews and Gentiles that they should repent. This is the Apostle Paul, the great expounder of Justification by Faith, 'That they should repent,' and what?--oh, you legal Paul, what?--'Do works meet for repentance.' Oh, Paul, I thought you were saved from works altogether and had done with the Law. Oh! you preach works, and doing works meet for repentance. That is not Gospel, Paul! He significantly adds, 'For this cause the Jews caught me, and tried to kill me': and for that cause the Pharisees have been trying to kill God's true, whole-truth witnesses ever since, for they don't like the doctrine that cuts idols and sin in twain, and that says, 'Bring forth fruits meet for repentance.' The faithful witness must give the whole truth; and he must give it personally, too. A faithful witness must give it himself. He can't witness by proxy. He may pay one hundred and fifty evangelists to go and witness in his place: that is all right. It is no more than he ought to do--two hundred and fifty, if he has money enough--because the Master claims all that he has, little or much, every farthing of it, however many preachers he may send and maintain. Therefore, he can never do any more than he ought, but that will not exonerate him from the personal obligation. God will say to him: If I have put My candle in you, it is that it may shine for somebody else's benefit. If I have given you the bread of life, it is for you to go and break it to the famishing multitudes round about you. YE are My witnesses. You may pay the minister and the missionary, but you must do it yourself, too, for how can one witness make up for two? True, God wants the minister to witness, and it is no more than his duty if he witnesses all day long as long as he lives. But that will never make up for your lack of service. YOU must witness; and there are some souls with whom you have more influence than any other living being--some souls that you can better get at than any other person--some souls that, if you do not save, will, probably, never be saved at all. Ye are My witnesses, and, if ye have the grace and love and light of God, it is at the peril of your soul if you hide it. Then, in the next place, faithful witnesses must speak out, not mince the matter--not 'mumble,' as they say in court. The judge makes the witness speak up so that everybody may hear him. He must be heard. 'Speak out.' And why should not the Lord's witnesses speak out? I wonder when we shall be done with this sneaking, hole-and-corner, shame-faced religion. I wonder when Christian England will
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cease to be ashamed of its God! The only nation under Heaven ashamed of its religion and its God is the one that has got the true God to worship and to love. What an anomaly; Speak out! David knew nothing about this mincing, half-and-half, milk-and-water sort of religion. David rejoiced to tell of his righteousness before the great congregation. He was always telling about His goodness, and His Law, and singing about it all the day long, dancing before the ark sometimes, and doing all manner of demonstrative things to glorify his God. And that was not enough, for when he had called upon all human kind to praise Him, he called on the hills and the trees to clap their hands and to dance for joy. We want some of that sort of religion nowadays. Talk of the new dispensation, I wish we could get a bit of the old one back. The interests of truth demand this outspokenness. How is error to be met but by the bold proclamation of the truth? How are the emissaries of Satan palming upon mankind his lies--always at it, night and day--how are they to be silenced but by witnesses faithfully crying in their ears, 'This is a lie, and that is a lie. This is the truth and this is the way; we know, we see, we feel--walk ye in it.' Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die? They want outspoken witnesses. There are plenty of false witnesses now, as there ever were, and what does Jesus Christ want? He wants His true witnesses to come out and face them, and be a match for them--not to sneak away in holes and corners, and be ashamed of their religion, and talk about an 'unobtrusive religion'--unobtrusive nonsense. There is no such thing! Come out before the world. As Elijah said, 'If the Lord be God, follow Him,' serve Him, speak for Him; 'but if Baal' be God, 'then follow him.' Then away with all this nonsense, your sanctuaries, and Bibles, and profession--have done with it all and follow Baal. Be one thing or the other. Methinks there wants an Elijah now to come and ring it through all England. I would like to see any man get up and make a straightforward recognition of, and appeal to, God in our Houses of Parliament, and I would like to see how he would be greeted. I was thinking, as I was passing the Royal Exchange and saw on the top, 'The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof,' how many believed it who walked beneath its shadow. I wonder what any one would be thought of, were he practically to recognize the fact. 'Oh!' they would say, 'he's not fit for his post--you'll have to take him away; he's a little affected in his head.' Oh! you know it is so; but God is not mocked, though men think He is. God sits in the circle of Heaven, and though the people do rage, and the heathen imagine a vain thing, and the kings of the earth set themselves, He is laughing at them, and by and by will come their calamity. We say the world is dying; what for? Sermons? No. Periodicals? No. Religious stories? Oh! dear no. There is no chance of a want of them for many a long year to come. Dying for disquisitions? No. For fine-spun theories? No. For creeds and faiths? Oh! you might have them by the dozen. What is it dying for?--downright, straightforward, honest, loving, earnest testimony about what God can DO FOR SOULS. That is what it wants. That is what those poor men in the shops, those walking up and down Oxford Street, in the theatres, in the dancing saloons, in the concert rooms, everywhere, that is what men want: somebody to come and take them lovingly by the collar, and tell them that GOD IS GOD, and that He can save them. 'He has saved me, my brother, and He can save you!' That is what the world wants. One word like that is better than a sermon, and it will do more for God and the Salvation of the world. Oh, yes, men are saying, in fact all over this land--thousands, 'Here I am; I am a poor slave of sin. I know it.' They say it in their consciences, though they do not say it to you. They say it often to us when they are pushed into a corner by the sword of the Spirit. 'I know I am wrong, sinful, wicked.' As that dear John Allen, whose life I have been telling about, said once when sitting swearing, surrounded by his companions, and somebody said to him, 'Jock, if you were to die, what would become of you?' 'I should go to Hell, straight!' He was an honest fellow. He knew where he was going, and he said it. I said to a gentleman, 'Mr. So-and-so, what about your soul?' He said, 'It's in a devilish state.' Poor man! He knew where he was going, and there are thousands like him. Do you think they don't feel their bondage? Have they not got a mind and a conscience? Have they not a better side, as you call it, to their nature? Has not God flashed the light of His Holy Spirit upon their dark souls, and have they not struggled and striven? Yes, but they say, 'There is no health in us; there is no help for us. We have done making resolutions and trying to be better; we cannot. There is no hope in us.' And there they are waiting for somebody to come and tell them there is HELP IN GOD. They say, 'I see precious little difference in you religious folks. I have never known anybody that religion has seemed to do much for.' And, when they are told to believe, they laugh at you, and I don't wonder at it. The poor human
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conscience is better instructed than many of its teachers. It wants to be put RIGHT, and it says, 'Is there any hope? Can God save such as I am? Has He saved anybody like me from this thraldom, from this slavery, from this misery, from this constantly going down in the mud? Did He ever save anybody LIKE ME?' And sometimes he goes to chapel or church, and hopes the minister will tell him, when lo, he begins a dissertation about the resurrection, or the divinity of Christ, or something the man has believed all his life, and so he is disappointed again, and he says, 'This is of no use to me.' Oh! friends, I speak the things I know from testimony of scores of souls. In fact, I could not repeat it, it would make your faces burn to hear what men of intelligence, thought, and standing have said to me in many an ante-room where I have been labouring. It is time there was a change. The world is famishing for lack of real spiritual bread. It wants something to eat, and you give it a stone! but God is raising a people who know what it wants and how to give it, who know how to break the bread of life, and testify what God has done for them, and what He can do for other poor famishing souls; who can go and say: 'Here, my friend, He can save such as you. I was such a one once. I was a slave of sin, the slave of drink, or a blasphemer, or a liar, or a thief, or addicted to some bad secret habit worse than any of these. I was such a slave, and He has saved me. He has broken my fetters and set me free, and I am the Lord's free-man. He has saved me and He can save you,' That is what the world wants--TESTIMONY WITNESSING. Has He saved any of you? Are you testifying to your poor, famishing, sinking fellow-men? Do you ever look at them and think where they are going? Do you pity them, love them, long after them in the bowels of Jesus Christ? Do you know anything of that longing? If so, how can you forbear testifying? 'Ye are My witnesses of these things,' everywhere, at all times, amongst all people! It is in the nature of the case that a witness must witness before other people, before living hearers. That is the place to witness, and before enemies, and when he does not know which way the wind will blow, or how the words of God will be received. He must be a true witness, even if he has to seal his testimony with his blood. This was the kind of witnessing the martyrs did. I often wonder whether there would be any martyrs now. Sometimes I think that the greatest boon to the Church of Christ would be a time of persecution. I believe it would. I believe it would drive us up to God and each other. We should find out, then, whether we were willing to forsake all to follow Him. You know that if the martyrs had taken the standard of religious life that exists now, they would never have been martyrs. They would have looked after their own skins, and left the Lord to look after the Gospel. If they might have been allowed a little latitude, and gone halfway, there would not have been any martyrs, because they could nearly all have got off with that; but they felt it necessary to be faithful right through, and to stand by the whole truth to the very last jot and tittle, and when they could have got off by saying three words on a paper, they refused to do it, and vent to the stake, and let the flames lick up their blood. Those are the witnesses the Lord wants--outside, everywhere, always at it. Always witnessing. 'Always?' you say. Yes; always. Why? Because men are always dying and being damned! If the Bible is true-- everywhere--your friends and your neighbours around you. You get a letter: 'Oh! Mr. So-and-so is dead--only ill three days--thirty-six hours--twenty-four hours--gone!' Ah! and the echo in many a soul afterwards is, 'What would I give for a chance to go and have one talk with him.' But he's gone-- somewhere! Where is he gone? If he were unwashed and unpardoned and unsaved--where is he gone? I got so wrought up once upon this point that I thought I should have lost my reason. I could not sleep at night with thinking of the state of those who die unsaved. Dare I think about it? WHERE IS HE GONE? Oh! it was this view of the case that led me to open my mouth first in public for God. I have promised some friends here to-night to give this illustration from my own experience, or else I rarely refer to it. I had long had a controversy on this question in my soul. In fact, from the time I was converted, the Spirit of God had constantly been urging me into paths of usefulness and labour, which seemed to me impossible. Perhaps some of you would hardly credit that I was one of the most timid and bashful disciples the Lord Jesus ever saved. For ten years of my Christian life my life was one daily battle with the cross--not because I wilfully rejected, as many do, for that I never dared to do. Oh, no! I used to make up my mind I would, and resolve and intend, and then, when the hour came, I used to fail for want of courage. I need not have failed. I now see how foolish I was, and how wrong; but, for some four or five months before I commenced speaking, the controversy had been signally roused in my soul which God had awakened years before, but which, through mistaken notions, fear, and timidity, I had allowed almost to die out. I was brought to very severe heart-searchings at this time. I had not been realizing so much of the Divine presence. I had lost a great deal of the power and